Stephanie Schaller, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina (USC) College of Nursing, has developed a new educational tool to help nursing students understand congenital heart defects. Each year, about 1 percent of babies born in the United States, or around 40,000 infants, have heart defects. Schaller highlights the need for nurses, especially in pediatrics and emergency care, to recognize and respond to these conditions. To help students learn this complex material, she created CardioEducator, a hands-on learning device now used at USC Columbia and USC Upstate.
CardioEducator was recently named a finalist in the education category of the 2025 South Carolina InnoVision Awards. Dean Jeannette Andrews of the USC College of Nursing said the college values innovation in education, research, and clinical practice. Andrews stated that Schaller’s tool helps students better understand cardiac concepts.
Schaller has taught the pediatrics course at USC since 2022 and holds three nursing degrees from the university. She found that traditional lectures were not effective for teaching the cardiovascular unit. Students often struggled with the complexity of heart anatomy and the changes in a baby’s heart after birth. Schaller wanted a model to show both normal and defective heart structures, but existing models were costly and incomplete…