Teaching Strategy in Nursing Education - Essay Example

Critique of a Teaching Strategy Introduction: Teaching strategies and methods are significant in terms of accomplishing the real purpose of education. Resources that help teachers to achieve effective teaching are typically a lesson plan, a curriculum, or other practical skills that include learning and thinking skills. Classroom teaching requires different ways to carry out lesson plan. For instance, the teacher can engage students in learning through questioning, explaining, modeling, collaborating and demonstrating. With the evolutionary stages in teaching practices and methods, there has been a lot of strategy revolution in education. Today, we find various concepts in the teaching methodology in education including the popular sources such as radio, television, computer, etc. With the revolutionary change brought by the innovations in technology, teaching strategies and techniques have been developed to a new height. This paper briefly addresses the relevance of teaching strategy in nursing education. With a brief overview on the evolution in nursing education, the paper attempts to explain the teaching strategies in nursing while developing a teaching plan based on the strategies. Teaching strategy in nursing education: Nursing education refers to the education provided to nurses in order to prepare them for their duties and responsibilities as nursing care professionals. This kind of education comprises of various theoretical and practical training (McEwen and Wills, 2007). Nursing education courses are offered by most countries for general nursing as well as specialized areas such as mental health nursing, pediatric nursing and post-operatory nursing. Nursing education is an integrated process amalgamating other relevant disciplines in medicine and clinical research (Bastable, 2008). The main objective of nursing education is to educate future practitioners or nurses to manage healthcare in a broader way. This requires the development of an effective teaching strategy in order to teach students how to adapt to changes in the theory and practice of nursing. There are various theories of learning in nursing education. For instance, one of the most significant learning approaches in nursing is cognitive learning. Different learning categories are based on a hierarchical arrangement of learning theories including intellectual and motor skills, verbal information, cognitive strategies, and attitudes. Lowenstein and Bradshaw (2004) discuss the category of intellectual skills that includes the following stages: Discrimination learning - Distinguishing differences for appropriate response. Concept learning - Detecting similarities for conceptualizing common characteristics. Rule learning - Combining two or more concepts for learning new situations. As integrated learning is the norm in today’s nursing education, interactive learning methods are relevant for nursing students, provided that they are getting required information. It is important on the part of nurse educators to make multiple methods of learning available to students in order to meet their individual and diverse learning styles. By means of the integrative learning, teachers can engage nursing students in better and advanced learning processes and encourage essential critical thinking skills. Coming to the teaching strategies in nursing education, one of the most relevant methods is electronic communication strategy. This is the age of technology and the Internet. The computer-enriched environment of learning makes way for effective electronic communication. This can include various forms of teaching such as bulletin boards, chat rooms, email, forums and threaded discussions, electronic libraries, use of the Internet and intranets, and so on (Lowenstein and Bradshaw, 2007). The growth of technology has brought tremendous changes in communication between students, faculty and staff. Computer technology is a valuable teaching tool that can improve teaching processes. There are various advantages as well as disadvantages of electronic communication strategy that are discussed below. Electronic communication strategy in nursing education: The field of Web-based class instruction has potential effectiveness in teaching processes. The rise and growth of computer technology have signaled the arrival of electronic communication that is popular in most educational institutions today. In terms of nursing education, the need for integrated learning has intensified the use of electronically mediated communication processes. There are several advantages of electronic communication strategy. The most significant point in electronic communication is the ease of interaction between teacher and student that further improves learning processes. Use of interactive softwares, email, visual and textual conversations between teacher and student, and televised pictures and graphics enables students to make the best of information technology. Through the use of email, teachers can involve students in group email discussions. Students and faculty can read and answer messages at their convenience. Email messages can be more detailed than traditional voice mail messages. Through the medium of electronic communication, the instructor introduces students to the resources available, provides necessary guidelines for using the resources, and even troubleshoots with the students whenever technical problem occurs. The main objective of electronic communication is accessing information. Nurse educators are responsible for incorporating into the curriculum opportunities in order to develop critical approaches for using technology as a tool for clinical decision making (Oermann and Heinrich, 2006). However, there are disadvantages too. The main issue with electronic communication is security. Protection of electronic data is a serious issue for those concerned with computer hacking and virus attacks. Besides, electronic data can be duplicated identically without any proof of duplication. Technical faults with data transmission speed can make it difficult for students to process and understand resources. Email privacy issues are another disadvantage of electronic communication. Transferring of data packets from one computer system to another may result in slow processing or even loss of data. One of the prominent disadvantages of electronic communication is the growing concern that it poses as a threat to replace the teacher. When everything relevant for education is accessible to the students through the Internet, the technological development tends to deviate students from educators, and become the virtual teacher. Above all, the adoption of any new technology into nursing education is a challenging task. If not instructed properly, electronic communication strategies can prove to be more trouble than that of any help. Teaching strategy for clinical nursing: Clinical nursing is an advanced field in nursing education that teaches students diagnosis and treatment of illness, advanced nursing care, collaboration in clinical research practices, expert clinical guidance and ethical decision making in healthcare. Clinical teaching is a complex process that involves a systematic educational setup. The nature of clinical education is interdisciplinary, which means the nursing students, faculty and staff have to be involved with other health providers. There are various interdisciplinary models of clinical teaching: preceptor model, clinical teaching associate (CTA) model, and clinical teaching partnership model (Gaberson and Oermann, 1999). Developing a teaching plan for clinical nursing involves constant and systematic interaction between the educator and students. It can include the following factors in the teaching plan: One-to-one teaching between the educator and individual student Integration of theory, research and practice to introduce new clinical skills and improve decision-making skills of students Inclusion of more project-based assignments for students in order to develop their proficiency Use of electronic communication for teacher-students interaction Involvement of students in frequent group discussions The use of electronic communication strategy is relevant in clinical nursing. As constant communication between the teacher and students is important in clinical teaching, email communication can be beneficial and effective. While online discussion forums and group email discussions can make learning interesting and informative, teachers can interact with the students individually. In this way, students can be accessible to new clinical skills as well as relevant study materials on clinical research. Conclusion: Teaching strategies have come a long way since the first use of the Internet. With technological innovations and spectacular advancement in information technology, teaching methods have been adapted into more of an interdisciplinary course than the traditional approach of teaching. The use of electronic communication strategies is a result of the technological development in various fields of education. Making information accessible to all is the goal of technology-driven teaching processes. This is most relevant today. References: 1. Bastable, S. B. (2008). Nurse as Educator: Principles of Teaching and Learning for Nursing Practice. London: Jones and Bartlett. 1. Gaberson, K. B. and Oermann, M. H. (1999). Clinical Teaching Strategies in Nursing. New York: Springer. 1. Lowenstein, A. J. and Bradshaw, M. J. (2004). Fuszard’s Innovative Teaching Strategies in Nursing. London: Jones and Bartlett. 1. Lowenstein, A. J. and Bradshaw, M. J. (2007). Innovative Teaching Strategies in Nursing and Related Health Professions. London: Jones and Bartlett. 1. McEwen, M. and Wills, E. M. (2007). Theoretical Basis for Nursing. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. 1. Oermann, M. H. and Heinrich, K. T. (2006). Annual Review of Nursing Education: Innovations in Curriculum, Teaching, and Student and Faculty Development. New York: Springer. Read More