Sara Marie Webb, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC portrait
  • Assistant Professor (Clinical), College Of Nursing

Current Courses

Fall 2024

  • NURS 6302-001
    Mental Hlth Assessment
  • NURS 7665-001
    PMHNP Practicum V
  • NURS 7665-002
    PMHNP Practicum V
  • NURS 7702-001
    DNP Scholarly Proj II

Summer 2024

Spring 2024

Professional Organizations

  • American Psychiatric Nurses Association. 07/01/2013 - present. Position : Member.

Practice History

  • University of Utah Sugarhouse Clinic: Women's Behavioral Health. College of Nursing. 10/31/2019 - present . # of Hours: 4.
  • Impact Mental Health. College of Nursing. 10/04/2017 - present . # of Hours: 8.

Teaching Philosophy

My teaching style focuses on discussion and real-world practice. My current teaching philosophy focuses on helping students become skilled in communication and assessment and on helping them become caring, empathetic nurses and educators. I think the only way to help students get ready to function as a nurse (or nurse practitioner in the case of my students) is to help them think critically and apply what they are learning to real-world scenarios. For this reason, I prefer active discussion with students and then active practice. Although I don’t prefer lecturing, I think it still has a valuable place in teaching the basic, foundational knowledge that students need before they can start to practice. Once they have been taught the essential information, I spend as much time as possible helping them apply it. For example, I taught a diagnosis course and spent most of class time acting as a patient and having students ask me assessment questions and “diagnose” me.

            In the classroom, I prefer leading by example and then guiding students as they practice themselves. Students have often not been exposed to core concepts and competencies and first need someone to show them how to get started. Once they have a good foundation of knowledge and have seen examples, I switch into guiding mode and help them practice the concepts on their own or in groups. I also know that students tend to look up to teachers who are already working as nurse practitioners and I think it is important to work hard to provide a good example of what a caring, competent nurse practitioner looks like.

            Students have widely varying experiences and backgrounds, leading to varying amounts of skill and aptitude. I believe it is the responsibility of an educator to take these varying backgrounds into consideration. I always try to get to know my students at the beginning of a class, including their experiences and background, so that I can have a basic understanding of what they need. I start teaching at a basic level, being careful not to assume that everyone has previous knowledge of the subject. I try to use a variety of teaching methods – videos, online quizzes, storyboarding, lectures, powerpoints, group assignments, and case studies – to help meet the needs of each learner. I understand that not all of these assignments will be helpful for everyone, but using multiple styles helps me reach the highest number of students. I also believe strongly in using case studies as a backbone of teaching. I believe that this helps students see how the information will be applied in their future career and helps them maintain interest in the content. I use a variety of case studies, using a variety of populations, to help each student be able to have interest in the topics we are discussing.

            There are several ways I measure my effectiveness as a teacher. I like to get real-time information and often use in-class online quizzes. I usually don’t count these as a grade and allow students to answer anonymously, but it quickly shows me if students are understanding the concepts or not. I also give students more independence over the course of a class and watch to see how they solve problems and case studies to gauge if they have learned the content and can apply it in more practical settings. I also highly value student feedback and pay close attention to the course feedback each semester.