Developing the Nurse Practitioner Preceptor Knowledge Center
Nurse practitioner and education expert, Theresa Campo, walks us through the activities and resources available to everyone.
At the end of 2025, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners® (AANP) announced the creation of the Nurse Practitioner Preceptor Knowledge Center, a resource hub for current and future preceptors featuring a rich collection of videos, articles and practical tools all curated to support your precepting journey.
One of the most exciting offerings within the Knowledge Center is “Precepting with a Purpose: A Comprehensive Guide for Nurse Practitioner Preceptors,”
an eBook introducing nurse practitioner (NP) preceptors to their role as clinical teachers and mentors. Learn more about the Knowledge Center and the Precepting with a Purpose Guide from AANP Vice President of Education and Accreditation, Theresa Campo, DNP, APRN, FAANP, FAAN.
The Role of the Preceptor
The preceptor role is crucial for ensuring that students studying to become NPs have the tools they need to get the most out of their education and clinical training. As Paula Tucker, PhD, DNP, FNP-BC, ENP-C, FAANP, explains in this video, “Precepting is about more than checking off procedures or reviewing SOAP notes — it’s about modeling professionalism, showing how to make good clinical decisions and teaching students how to communicate and build trust with patients.”
For many would-be preceptors, the Preceptor Knowledge Center can help by answering basic questions about the process of becoming a preceptor and what will be expected of them. Campo says that the materials found on the site are there “to support the NP who’s been in practice for a couple of years and has been approached by a student, and they're not really sure what is expected of them or what they need to do to be a preceptor.”
That said, students will also find a number of resources dedicated to their experiences, including what preceptors will expect of them throughout the precepted experience. “It really encourages communication from the start, and provides the materials, knowledge and information that preceptors — as well as students — look for and could be helpful,” says Campo.
Comprehensive Resources for NP Preceptors
A comprehensive overview of the precepting process can be found in the new eBook, “Precepting With Purpose: A Comprehensive Guide for Nurse Practitioner Preceptors,” which is accompanied by an interactive course. This resource introduces NP preceptors to their role as clinical teachers and mentors, offering practical strategies to support student learning while maintaining patient safety and clinical efficiency.
Best Practices For Clinical Teaching: Top 10 Tips For Success is an article that explores the Conceptual Model of Learning; offers teaching strategies; and provides tips like “Establish Psychological Safety Early” and “Ask Questions That Spark Clinical Reasoning.” The article “really keeps it [Clinical Teaching] simplified but provides enough knowledge that if there's a tip that is of extreme interest to you, then you can find more information,” says Campo.
Other resources include Precepting 101: A Quick Guide to Clinical Teaching, a guide highlighting key responsibilities and the step-by-step flow of clinical teaching for the NP preceptor, and the infographic Navigating Common Precepting Challenges. About the infographic, Campo says: “We hear this from our preceptors: ‘How do I handle a particular situation, or a particular personality of a student? What is the best way to bring them around and help them to be successful?’ This infographic offers strategies and insights to address these challenges.”
Setting Students Up for Success
While the Preceptor Knowledge Center can be viewed as a standalone resource, information available there is also complimented by other material from AANP, like AANP SET and new courses in the AANP CE Center. “AANP SET is our student education and training area,” explains Campo, “and this is a wonderful student benefit offering students access to around 100 sessions right now in three different categories — clinical content (including pharmacology), diverse populations and professional development.” The CE Center, meanwhile, houses “hundreds of topics and sessions ranging from a one credit hour session — it could be a webinar podcast — to multi-module certificate programs with and without micro-credentialing. The micro-credentialing is something new for AANP, and you'll be seeing a lot more of those programs coming up in 2026.”
One of the greatest strengths of the Preceptor Knowledge Center is that it is available to anyone — AANP members or nonmembers. “We feel strongly here at AANP that we need to not only support all NPs, but also those special populations within our role and profession of the student and the preceptor,” says Campo. “We want the information to be accessible at NPs’ fingertips. It is unbiased, it is fair. It exhibits the standards expected of preceptors and students regardless of the academic institution or the clinical site practice setting. We want preceptors to get the information that they need and know that they can rely on AANP to provide that.”
More Opportunities for Preceptors at the 2026 AANP National Conference
The 2026 AANP National Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 23-27, also features CE sessions geared toward the preceptor, including “Preceptor Incentive Program: Program Evaluation,” and “Preceptors’ Lived Experiences Study.” Browse all of the CE Sessions and Workshops available on the conference website.