Teaching Effectiveness

External validation 

  • Grants

  • Externally-Funded Research: Principle Investigator Role

    2016-2020 (Award# P016A160081, Total Project amount: $566,832)

    Title: “Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages. Department of Education, Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language (UISFL) Program. This funding helped advance the study of Spanish for Health Professionals and the development of a nationally recognized comprehensive certificate program.  This grant funding helped expand School of Nursing study abroad courses in Spanish-speaking countries.

     Internally-Funded Research: Principle Investigator Role

     

  • 2020: Amount $2,500, Faculty Research Mentor, Rutgers Community Leadership Center sub-award to USAID grant entitled, “Developing the Higher Education Center on Ethics, Equity and Transparency in Paraguay, South America.  Paraguay. (PI: Gloria Bonilla Santiago, PhD)., 

  • 2020:  Amount: $7,900, Faculty Mentor, Rutgers Student IDEA Case Competition: COVID-19 Inequities in New Jersey (PI, Richard Marlink)

  • 2018:  Amount $1500, PI, Rutgers University, Summer Doctoral Research Assistant

    2018:  Amount: $1000, PI, Rutgers University, Open and Affordable Textbooks Grant

    2017:  Amount $5000, PI, Rutgers University, Summer Research Award

    2017:  Amount: $1,000, PI, Rutgers University, International Studies and Program Grant

    2016:  Amount $5000, PI, Rutgers University, Summer Research Award

    2015:  Amount: $5000, PI, Rutgers University, Research start-up funds Award

    2015:  Amount: $35,000, PI, Rutgers University, Community Leadership Center, Faculty Practice

  • Scholarly Teaching Publications in Refereed Journals

     

  • Laguna, A. G. & Pontes, N. M. H. (2020). Improving health equity and patient safety through innovative holistic Spanish education for nurses and health professionals. Estudios del Dessarrollo Social: Cuba y America Latina, 8, 238 – 244. (Journal of Social Development Studies: Cuba and Latin America, Special Issue, 500th Anniversary of La Habana). 

    Nickitas, D. & Pontes, N. M. H. (2020). Around the corner, across the globe: developing global citizens through civic engagement. Metropolitan Universities Journal, 31(2), 53-70. https://doi.10.18060/23813

  • Scholarly Teaching Works in Progress

    Pontes, N. M. H., Salomone, A., & Mattioli, A. (Anticipated 2021). Learning abroad among Guatemalan highlanders: Using narrative inquiry to analyze students’ web-based reflections.

  • Honors and Awards for Teaching

  • Clement A. Price Human Dignity Award, Rutgers University, Committee to Advance Our Common Purposes, 2020

    Chancellor’s Civic Engagement Award for Community Engaged Scholarship, Rutgers University, 2019

    Innovations in the Continuum of Care Award, Organization of Nurse Leaders of New Jersey (ONL), 2018

    AACN Innovations in Professional Nursing Education Award (school award for educational grant work), American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2018

Internal validation

Student evaluations

  • Spring 2020 Population Health In Puerto Rico

Even though it moved to remote learning, both Dr. Pontes and Dr. Nickitas made the transition as easy as possible and we still learned a great deal despite the trip being canceled.

I really liked working on all of the disaster response trainings. Although we didn’t get to go on the trip, both professors made the best out of the situation and I still learned a lot about Puerto Rico and disaster response and preparedness.

  • Spring 2020 DNP Scholarly Seminar III

Dr. Pontes’ feedback have been very helpful in improving my scholarly writing. Her stress–relief techniques were very useful especially at this stage in program.

Definitely inspired me to keep learning and take small steps rather than being stagnant.

Encouraged me to create a phenomenal project.

  • Spring 2020 Nursing Management and Leadership

Dr. Pontes is a great professor with knowledge on many nursing topics which helped in all class this semester! Dr. Pontes did a great job in helping us students adapt to online learning and help us succeed.

Great course, amazing professor. Really cares about her students.
She has made me want to become a better leader and make an impact within nursing.

  • Spring 2019 Population Health in Cuba:

    She generated good questions that made us think about the stuff learnt in a different perspective.

    I really enjoyed learning about Cuba’s history before we went. It gave a context to our visit and studies that just taking a trip to someplace would not have had.

    She made me think in a way that I never thought it before. Her knowledge is invaluable, and she demonstrated that through her teaching style. Overall excellent Professor worthy of admiration

     

    Fall 2019 ABS Management and Leadership

    Dr Nancy Pontes is very respectful to student and very understanding . She is always willing to meet with you and discuss any problem facing student  She is very supportive of students, one of the best in this faculty .

    Fall 2019 ABS Wellness and Health Assessment Lab

    It was a pleasure having you as my lab instructor! You were very knowledgeable and supportive. I learned a lot from you.

    Pontes was an excellent clinical instructor and I learned so much from her.

    She is very knowledgeable and always made herself available if the class had questions.

     

    Spring 2018 Population Health in Puerto Rico

    Dr. Pontes encourages students to look at life in a different country through voicing what they currently know about a country and then challenging students to ask questions and think about how life in that country relates to or compares to life in the U.S.

    Dr. Pontes is friendly, patient, fair, and understanding. She is very knowledgeable and it was a pleasure to travel with her. Hopefully I am able to travel to more countries with her in the future.

     

  • Fall 2017 ABS Community Health Nursing/Global Health

    I like a lot of the subject matter that is taught in this course. Dr. Pontes is a great professor and is very passionate about what she teaches.

    I enjoyed the combination of formal instruction via powerpoint combined with activities to solidify the concepts in-class.

    It is a very different class. It is like health promotion but much deeper in-depth. There is a lot of work. I enjoyed the global project and community project.

    The group paper and presentation allowed us to get involved with the community. Something I thought this course was great with doing is challenging us with different assignments. The creativity of the assignments was ideal to assist us with making the transition into our nursing practice. For example, we had an Abode Sparks project that was awesome with working electronic media, while also learning about community topics, such as health disparities in other countries and comparing them to the U.S.

  • A Civic Engagement Project ,…,challenged us to work with different people, ways of doing things and experience levels. This was great because in the real world – we are not going to be able to pick and choose who we work with – but, we have to make it work.

  • In my opinion, there was a lot more to the course than just memorizing information for an exam. It was about interaction, getting to know the community and how it worked and working with people. These lessons were seen throughout learning the material – which made for a drastic difference in the educational ‘style’ most of us are ‘use to’. I hope that other classmates really stepped back and looked at this class holistically, because there was so much to really get out of it.

    Dr. Pontes is one of the most caring and patient instructors. She truly wants us to succeed and challenges us with a more team environment than most of the other classes we have taken at Rutgers. I think her challenge to us is vital because teamwork in our future positions is so important. Further, the variety of different assignments allows us to expand our experience and have surface knowledge of things like creating a webpage, writing a paper within limits with a team.

    Applying what I learned in class to what I was doing in clinical. Doing this helped me learn a lot.

    Great professor and loved the class discussions!

    Dr. Pontes made the learning experience fun through group assignments, presentations and audio videos. She reality her lecture to really life experiences that are effecting the under-serviced population of people in the

    I appreciated learning how to assess a community, understand global health and how it will impact me as a future nurse.

    Dr. Pontes is a wonderful teacher and she is very passionate about community nursing. She really cares and wants us to learn. There isn’t much I would change about this course.

    Because she is so passionate teaching this material, it is easier to learn and be engaged in class.

    She helped me to understand there are more jobs outside of the hospital for nurses

    Stimulating questions and intriguing videos during class.

    I really enjoyed all of the certifications that were required for this class. Not only were they helpful for the course, but they were helpful to our careers as well.

    Is a good role model

    Very motivating instructor and wealth of knowledge in this subject

    She encouraged collaborating with our peers and sharing ideas.

    Dr. Pontes wants her students to do well. If you think you have a hard time, see Dr. Pontes. She will try her best to help. I thank you (Dr. Pontes) for everything!

     

  • Community Health Nursing, Spring 2017

  • We had case studies, and encouraged insight or experiences that related to the topic. Gave many examples to help understand the material better.

  • Extremely supportive in helping our class understand the material.  She responded effectively to questions.

  • The Instructor helped engage my thinking. It put into perspective so many health issues and disparities both in New Jersey and around the world (Community Health, spring 2017).

    Yes, the instructor has opened my eyes to the importance of Nursing in the Community (Community Health, spring 2017).

  • I am now interested in getting involved in the community (Community Health, spring 2017).

 

  • Health and Healing, Spring 2017
  • The best aspect of this course though was how the instructor motivated everyone to embrace the course material, the instructor’s methods encouraged everyone to ask more questions and strive for a better understanding of the material.
  • Dr. Pontes was an excellent instructor not only in the classroom, but was the ideal professor to travel with; I would travel to any part of the world with Dr. Pontes without a second thought!
  • This class was by far the most influential experience of my time in college and maybe of my life.  (Health and Healing, spring 2017).
  • The instructor encouraged me to try new experiences and take more risks.  I believe this is important for intellectual growth and the overall progression through college (Health and Healing in Guatemala, spring 2017).

 

  • Wellness and Health Assessment Fall 2016
  • Wow!  This course felt like nursing 101.  I loved everything about it.  Learning was so much fun and I read every page of the book.  I was completely engaged with my learning and studying.
  • Dr. Pontes put me at ease the very first day of class. She is an excellent professor and extremely patient and understanding.  She is one of the best professors at Rutgers University.

 

  • Community Health Fall 2016

  • Dr. Pontes knows a lot about community nursing and her passion really encouraged me to learn more and pay attention in class (Community Health, fall 2016).

  • Dr. Pontes has a lot of real-world experience related to what she teaches which is very helpful and make it easy to engage in-class discussion.

 

  • Community Health, Spring 2016

  • The instructor of this course was one of the most intelligent professors I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.  Her life experience allowed her to give great advice and encourage our learning.  This entire course expanded my intellectual growth by emerging into a different culture and language.  You learn something you can never be taught by books or classroom lectures (Community Health, spring 2016).

 

  • Advanced Health Assessment, Fall 2015
  •  I think the best way was just to teach me to strive for more. She always expected more and more out of us and even when we didn’t quite understand what the “more” was, she wanted us to learn how to think outside of the proverbial box and learn to decipher problems on our own.

     

    Course evaluations

    – COURSE INFORMATION –

    – COURSE EVALUATION –

     

    Evaluation
    Responses

    Teaching Effectiveness
    (Max = 5)

    Course Quality
    (Max = 5)

    SsYr

    Course Title

    Number

    Cr

    MOI

    Aud

    Resp

    Enrl

    Resp 

    Instructor

    Dept Mean

    Instructor

    Dept Mean

    SP20

    DNP Scholarly Seminar 3

    57:705:673:91

    3

    Sem/Lab

    Gra

    Total

    9

    8

    4.88

    4.51

    4.88

    4.40

    SP20

    Population Health in Puerto Rico

    57:705:392:91

    3

    Sem/Lab

    unm

    Total

    9

     

    5.0

    4.21

    5.0

    4.17

    SP20

    Nursing Management & Leadership

    57:705:407:02

    3

    Lec

    unm

    Total

    57

    27

    4.65

    4.21

    4.44

    4.17

    FA19

    ABS Wellness & Health Assessment Lab

    57:705:339:01

    3

    Sem/Lab

    unm

    Total

    10

    8

    4.88

    N/A

    4.75

    N/A

    FA19

    ABS Management & Leadership

    57:705:434:01

    3

    Lec

    unm

    Total

    50

    42

    3.9

    4.3

    3.3

    4.3

    SP19

    Population Health in Cuba

    57:705:393:91

    3

    Sem/Lab

    unm

    Total

    9

    5

    5

    4.1

    5

    4.0

    SP19

    DNP Scholarly Seminar 3

    57: 705:673:91

    3

    Sem/Lab

    Gra

    Total

    6

    2

    5

    4.4

    5

    4.5

    SP18

    Population Health in Cuba

    57:705:393:91

    3

    Sem/Lab

    unm

    Total

    9

    3

    4.7

    4.3

    4.3

    4.3

    FA17

    Community Health Global Nursing

    57:705:460:01

    3

    Lec

    unm

    Total

    51

    23

    3.8

    4.4

    3.6

    4.3

    SP17

    Health and Healing in Guatemala

    57:705:399:01

    3

    Sem/Lab

    unm

    Total

    16

    11

    4.89

    4.33

    5.0

    4.29

    SP17

    Community Health Global Health

    57:705:460:01

    3

    Lec

    unm

    Total

    34

    11

    3.91

    4.33

    3.64

    4.29

    FA16

    Wellness and Health Assessment

    57:705:205:03

    2

    lec

    unm

    Total

    21

    12

    4.58

    4.31

    4.50

    4.29

    FA16

    Community Health Global Health

    57:705:460:01

    3

    Lec

    unm

    Total

    50

    34

    3.79

    4.31

    3.50

    4.29

    SP16

    Health and Healing in Guatemala

    57:705:399:01

    3

    Sem/Lab

    unm

    Total

    9

    9

    5.00

    4.34

    4.89

    4.36

    FA15

    Advanced Health & Physical Assessment

    58:705:519:93

    4

    Lec/Lab

    unm

    Total

    12

    10

    3.78

    4.04

    4.11

    4.04

Departmental observations / evaluations

Support from students & alum from Spring 2020

  • Student in Management and Leadership Course:

  • Dear Dr. Pontes,

    I just wanted to reach out to thank you for a great semester. It was an odd one that I’ll never forget, but somehow we all made it through! Thank you so much! …I’m definitely going to start a journal, there have been some pretty rough days and I definitely think it will help me process everything. …It’s been scary at times, as I’ve seen my peers and colleagues test positive for COVID-19, but I’m still optimistic about the future after all of this.

    I will keep in touch once I’m able to take my boards!

    Thank you for a great semester again,

  • Alumna: Learning abroad student who graduated from Rutgers and graduated with BSN at another University.

  • Hi,

    I hope the summer is treating you well. I’ll be finishing up nursing school at … next month…, I love it! I appreciate your help with this and will be eternally grateful for the inspiration on becoming a nurse.

    Kindly,

     

  • Alumna:

    Good morning Prof.,

    I just wanted to let you know I passed the NCLEX!!

    There were so many leadership questions on it I was shocked, different questions about employees intoxicated, residents not listening, and charge nurse holding seminars or work meetings and they were al SATA questions.

    Thank you for everything in the class because I needed it to answer those questions. I hope you are staying safe and healthy!

     

Sample Lecture Material

Intro to Global Disasters and Health Care System Response (Dr. Nancy Pontes)

Rutgers Ed Talk “RED” talk: Transitioning into practice Dean Nickitas and School Nurse Robin Cogan 

Disaster Planning and Response (Dr. Nancy Pontes)