Reflective Journal - Personal Statement Example

Reflective Journal Introduction: This is reflective journal that I maintained throughout the last semester. I am a senior nurse working in a multispecialty hospital, where different aspects of nursing are embodied regularly during practice. I am senior nurse, so my work also included teaching a group in my field work. As is evident, this teaching session involved learning, and my job was also to learn in parallel. The audience was student and registered nurses, and during this semester, I also had to attend teaching sessions taken by other registered nurses. Therefore, it could be a dual process, where the teacher has bilateral opportunity to learn as a faculty as well as a student (Mooney, M. & Nolan, L., 2006). When I decided to keep this journal as a means for reflective practice, I was not very systematic in keeping regular notes. This perhaps happened due to the fact that I did not take reflective journaling very seriously. Now, while presenting it in the form an organized journal, I see that that would have been better to keep an organized note. As I allow the work to guide me, I see that it generates a conscious intention in me, and it becomes a contemplative practice. In this journal I would reflect upon this process of transition in me to examine how well I did my work, and what could have been done better to make my practice more fruitful. Week 1 When I was intimated that I would be required to take teaching session on contagious diseases and method of prevention through isolation to a group of 20 people comprising of registered nurses and nursing students, I was immediately very nervous. As a registered nurse I am quite confident about the principles of infection prevention in our hospital, but knowing things and teaching things are different. This would be practice of learning, and the first question I asked to myself was, whether I was competent enough (Nursing Council of Hong Kong, 2004). This was an education programme designed to provide the nurses necessary skills, knowledge, and attitudes to practice in future in their respective roles. Those who were registered nurses and belonged to the group of students, this session would definitely need to be designed to refine their skills and update their knowledge. Ultimately, these educations would serve to contribute to the maintenance of high standards in practice delivering the best possible care. I questioned myself about whether it was necessary or not. It is true that this teaching would at least promote life-long learning in the constantly changing requirement of standards of service. This topic would definitely relevant to the leaning and practice needs of the group. The students are expected to undertake infectious diseases nursing following the completion of the course. Only thing I could not clearly saw was what would be taught and why that would be taught. It would need a curriculum model, and given the mixed nature of the group, learning would be seen as a change in the observable behaviour of the students in practice, but it should be a process. I understand that this programme would be much more focused on the development of understanding (Paterson, B.L. & Pratt, D.D., 2007). I decided that in my introduction to the training programme, I would highlight these points, so students may participate in a more active manner. Given the fact that I am a first-time teacher, I also made a note that I would familiarize myself with the curriculum design of the course. Week 2 The teaching should occur according to the learning needs of the students. I was not an educationist, but it was immediately very important for me to know and design the content of my course (Beitz, J. M., 1996). To be able to do that, I had to first examine the philosophy on which the curriculum would be based on. Moreover, it should need facilitation in a very careful manner to link with the feelings and thinking of the participant taking care of the practice relevance. The topic that has been assigned to me is relevant to practice, since infectious diseases prevention is a very important part of nursing practice in our hospital. If I were a student, I would first seek personal relevance in that it should be able to impart greater self-knowledge, self-understanding, self-belief, and self-efficacy. Every hospital has a infectious diseases guideline, and in our hospital, it is followed rigorously. However, in my practice I have seen that sometimes incomplete understanding of the science leads to failure of implementation of certain practices. This is certainly compromise in quality, and I hope this learning programme would provide explanations of the different guidelines so an improvement in the existing care takes place. I also came to understand that this study design might have political relevance as well since this training may modify practice actions of the participants that would respond to policy imperatives (Bahn, D., 2001). I remember may practice actions that I used to do since seniors do it without knowing why it was done. This education may free us from unquestioning adherence to habitual routines, tradition, precedent, coercion, and thereby self-deception. Thus, I was very serious to design the curriculum in such a manner that all the parts of the programme must fit together so the students can easily relate between theory taught and actual practice (Heath, P., 2002). Week 3 To being with I made a list of resources that would be necessary for this programme. I decided to visit the professional library of our hospital college. I decided to study the infectious diseases nursing guideline of our institution and the rationale for them. I was taking notes, and while doing this I was surprised to learn that I, although am a senior nurse, do not know a lot of reasons of many practices that I do in the clinical area. Over days, I became keenly interested in the topic, and for me, it was like re-exploring and re-examining my knowledge on the topic. Things have changed dramatically since I was preregistration student, and this programme could be an opportunity to learn things anew. This also was an eye opener to the fact of learning needs. I could access some books and journals on learning needs as it is applicable in nursing education. I could explore that within this given context of infectious disease nursing, to provide a framework of my teaching session, a philosophical approach can be extremely useful. It was important to set the goals of the programme in order for it being effective (Quinn, F.A. & Hughes, S.J., 2007). I desired the final outcome of this programme would be that the students learn the principles of nursing management of contagious diseases and its prevention in the hospital setting as far as hospital guidelines and nursing are concerned, and they would be able to find out the rationale of their practice in relation to this. It is also desirable that they would be able to incorporate new evidences into their practice and to disseminate their knowledge throughout their career. In the short-term, it is, however, expected that at the conclusion or shortly after the session, the learner should be able to provide efficient, appropriate and effective isolation care to patients who have or are suspected to have highly contagious communicable diseases so as to prevent the spread of infected. These are precisely the short-term objectives, and as dictated by principles of learning, these can be measured, learner-centred, and they focus on their behavioural improvement while dealing with such a patient (Sternberger, C.S., 2002). Week 4 Before planning the content, it was of utmost importance to discern which factors may prevent fulfillment of these goals or objectives for the students. From my experience as a student, I know that learning style of every student varies, and just giving and receiving information does not guarantee learning. My facilitators had warned me about barriers of learning, and honestly, I felt that I did not know anything about these barriers, and if at all they exist, these would disappoint me since the outcome of the programme would not be met. I came to know that learning barriers can impede the teaching-learning process. As a teacher, I must protect against the psychological barriers of the students for learning. Moreover, there may be external or environmental barriers in the learning process. I decided that I would ensure that there are no such barriers or all barriers eliminated during the learning program. For example the place of learning, as I planned, would have necessary privacy, minimum interruption, and minimal extraneous stimuli. The language must be easy and simple comprehensive to all. I had also decided that my body language should be conducive to the students. Body language is very important in communication since what I say when I speak is just only one part what I would be communicating. I would have to maintain eye contact while communicating with the student. Moreover, audiovisual training material would serve the purpose of better communications. Handouts printed on the salient topics would be planned, so the learners get involved more and barriers of learning is wiped off as much as possible. It would be very pertinent to declare that I was feeling very anxious about whether my communication would be helpful for my students, but on a second thought, when I found what their learning needs were, I felt relaxed, since I could have adequate time of preparation for the content of the programme (White, R. T., 1988). Week 5 As I said earlier, I was concerned about the environment of the teaching. Teaching can be equated to learning only in a good environment. It has been established that for a student in nursing, a clinical situation is a particularly rich environment for learning. I remember, when I was a student, I used to be engrossed in topics that are related to clinical practice, and I would intently hear and remember my tutor's practice experiences. I hoped my students will demonstrate such motivation, since the content I was planning, I thought would be based on my practical experiences. Although this indicates, this would best be done in the practice setting; the group would not fit there. Adequate interaction engages the students, and I planned that I would create an environment of experiential learning out of the practice setting through stories of my own practice. It was therefore important to know how to create an environment that fosters learning (Bastable, S., 2003). I planned meticulously for this, since I felt a correct planning will only keep me on track. I decided that the teaching will be in the lecture hall of the hospital which the learners will find easily. It was also important to inspect the place before the session to see whether the teaching resources, such as, the LCD projector, computer, and the printed handouts were in place. The physical environment was not the only concern. I needed to demonstrate some other things for them to understand that they are in a learner-friendly environment. I had to project myself as approachable, welcoming, supportive, helpful, available and contactable, knowledgeable, and as confident enough to pass information on to them. The question was why these were necessary. Evidently, the grade of felt comfort in the environment promotes learning. The learning method would be interactive audiovisual lecture with the help of powerpoint slides. The group will be consolidated to 20 with both student nurses and registered nurses (Condell, S. L., & Elliot, N., 1989). Week 6 It was decided that the date of the teaching session would be September 18. I had few more weeks on hand. It was important to divide the course into the standard topics, and for me, it was more important to decide the content of the course. The topic specifically decided was "Contagious diseases and the methods of prevention of the diseases" with detailed explanation of various isolation facilities used by hospitals and their different categories. The goal of the session would be to provide an insight about the nursing management of a outbreak of contagious diseases. Regarding the breakup of the course, I planned it to be divided into several parts that would cover introduction, isolation facilities and categories, isolation facilities for infectious diseases, communication and advice on use of isolation facilities, discontinuation of isolation and discharge to step-down facilities, and conclusion. Apart from the conclusion of the session, it would be great to use a lecture method based on powerpoint slides, and I felt it would be more capturing if I add my own experience and learning to this lecture. This would make this training unique in the sense that one can get information from internet, government health agency publications, or text books, but experiences of true nursing practice are never available to the students without being engaged in practice. Due to time constraints, it would not be possible to invite discussion in these 5-minute sessions, but I decided to have questionnaire verification about their learning about when to discontinue isolation through the printed handout (Eaton, A., 1999). Discussion can be encouraged in the conclusion part where questions were invited and I first encouraged other students to answer them and would myself answer finally. This being the standard and my plan, I was in a little doubt, whether I was right about my course planning, and I decided to take opinions of an experienced fellow teacher. With her help, I was able to create a curriculum map over the ensuing weeks. Week 7 In this week, I decided the content of my lecture. While reflecting on them it is difficult to elaborate on the content. I did a task analysis to identify the information that was required in the said session. It was important to streamline the information given to the students, and I know from my experience, how worrisome a load of information could be. I used to be overwhelmed and lost during the sessions that delivered profuse information. Moreover, to achieve the leaning goals, it was important that the teacher provides only relevant information, and the learner is not confused as to recognise which was the pertinent information. I knew that memory functions in a discerning manner, and I needed to tailor the delivery of information in a way that would have enhanced retention and recall later at the time of practice. Furthermore, in the introduction, I decided to include some associated knowledge that would link the students' previous knowledge base to the present learning and its retention. Contents would flow first with a definition of infectious diseases and how a chain of infection works between the agent, the means of transmission, and the host. The dynamic interaction between host, organism, and environment where different modes of transmission are responsible for outbreak or spread of an infectious disease will be dealt with, and ample examples from practice would be given. A very brief about the causes of infectious diseases and different agents will be discussed (Hospital Authority, 2006). In this relation, the government website of "Know more about communicable diseases" and the norms and incidences of notification from the same website can be shown to them to capture their attention. The newer concerns about infectious diseases as applicable to Hong Kong will be mentioned. Following this important of contact transmission and importance of isolation as a preventive measure will be explained. The hospital data base and Hong Kong Government isolation facilities will be listed and demonstrated (Duncan, P., 2008). The rationale of communication and advice on use of isolation and why that is important will be highlighted. In the last part, connection would be made with incubation period, vaccination factors, and duration of isolation. This would be the culmination of knowledge when the students will be able to tell when the isolation can be discontinued or when the isolated patients will be free to be discharged from isolation due to their freedom from infection or more appropriately whether they are no longer harmful to others or self. Lastly, the discussion would invite and answer questions (Brady, A., 2005). Week 8 This is my reflections on the actual training session. The session was smooth, and the audience demonstrated engagement with the presentations through active discussion of the topics within the presentation and came up with questions quite frequently. The session was informative and audience could relate to it. My body language was confident and I was seeing the effects of my repeated rehearsals of the session. I was using lecture notes during the presentation, and the main points were highlighted. I was using attractive PowerPoint slides. There was arrangement of microphone, and the students were hearing through the headphone without any disturbance. Despite all these, I was feeling nervous and was afraid that I would drop my notes, and I fastened them neatly. I was sure that my lesson plan followed a logical sequence with statements and summaries. I made all attempts keep it short and to the point with timing as the most effective tool for effective learning. I would not say that I was very confident, but the rehearsal made me much more conversant with the subject matter. I also illustrated the points by practical examples from my own area of work (Woolfolk, A. E., 2004). I had to ask repeatedly to myself during the planning phase, which would be the most appropriate practice examples to elucidate my points. Moreover, I had no chance to ignore knowledge of the content in terms of material and concepts involved. Some other aspects of the perceived success of this session need to be mentioned. The session provided information which was beyond the range of the usual informative websites available in internet. Since the session was based on the knowledge gathered by personal experiences, the audiences were impressed by it and took notes of every piece of information. They even requested to send a copy of the presentation to them so that they can use it to their benefit. After the conclusion, every student was asked to provide a feedback about the session, and I hoped that these would help me to be a better teacher (Ben-David, M.F., 2005). Week 9 It was time for examination of my performance as a teacher. This experience of teaching was challenging and created an opportunity for me to learn. I must admit that before planning this session, my knowledge was incomplete, and this enriched my knowledge on the topic of isolation practices in the hospitals. I examined whether I had to act in front of the group, and to be very frank, I had to, being careful about my voice, eye contact, movement, and demonstrated confidence. On further thinking, it was really stressful. I did the explanation very well where I dealt in detail about contagious diseases, informing them about the results and consequences of ignoring these diseases (Cowan, D.T., Norman, I. & Coopamah, V.P., 2005). The isolation facilities were also explained in detail so along with pictures of hospitals where these facilities are actually in practice. As received in the feedback, the explanation method was good and audience felt it to be informative. What did not go well was the audiovisual setup. We had used the latest equipments. However, since we had 20 people in the audience, there were few types of equipment which were used few times earlier and hence were not as good as the others. This created a little distraction, however, I managed them, and keeping the paucity of resources in mind, everyone took it well. I could have checked them earlier. Next time onwards, I would myself check each and every equipment that is to be used during the session. Also I would make sure; the equipments are available in larger number than that required in the session. As highlighted earlier, the teaching environment was very pleasant and the supporting staff was very helpful which made the teaching very comfortable. The projectors and slides were used very effectively and the power point presentations were also projected across the training hall so that everyone can think in similar line of thought. The audience was composed of two groups of people. There were few registered nurses and few were nursing students. While the registered nurses were more mature and already possessed much knowledge about various facilities, the student nurses, even though were trained in all diseases and prevention/cure facilities, actually lacked practical knowledge of such facilities. Therefore, the training was done keeping them in mind. First I explained every concept through slides and presentations, and then I specially explained the basics of how various facilities are used in hospitals (Wong, D., 2008). The students voiced understanding, and my feeling was that it gave the students a clear view of everything. I consider my presentation to be very good and clearly up to the mark. I made sure the audience is kept engrossed with my words and I also paced along the podium so as to address every side equally. This way I could relate better to all 20 people. Also I took more care for nursing students so that they can feel comfortable to ask their doubt in front of other people who were registered nurses. Also, I went up to people myself to ask them if they had understood or whether they wanted any help with the presentation. Specially the students who were hesitant; I put extra effort to make them feel more comfortable (Tovey, M. D. & Lawlor, D.R., 2004). Week 10 This was the time for critical reflection about my own learning. From this journal it will be evident that a training session of worth 30 minutes requires work towards that for a considerable period of time with meticulous planning and preparation. Critically I must say that there are certain gaps in my activities that can be improved. I must monitor the overall activities to ensure that every one among the audience is addresses to personally being extremely focused and attentive during the delivery of the session. Talking to the audience is a method of communication where the personal attributes of each participant are explicit. Revealing what each one them thinks, what is their knowledge levels individually and exposure would have allowed me to customise the training based on personal needs. This could have been a means to identify and relate to everyone personally and understand their questions. Time had been a constraint, and with better practice before the session this area could have been attended. Although I made a point to examine the facilities, due to inexperience, I missed the audiovisual aids, where some older instruments failed. Ideally, it should not have been happened because it causes distraction. Room was spacious enough to hold 20 people and it had proper ventilation and acoustics to support the lecture. Seating arrangement was appropriate and was more than enough to accommodate the number of people present at the session. Also, the seating arrangement was such that everyone had clear visibility for the slide projection. Added to that I made sure my behaviour remained open to them, so they get the ideal learning environment. I could have sensed earlier that nurses would like more knowledge and the students would seek hands on experience (Williams, B., 2001). Given the student's inexperience, these needs in a same group were in conflict, and I could not manage the conflict well, paying more attention to the students. The course should have more knowledge base. Next time, I would choose the group so people with a common interest attend a session. Overall, this was a very gratifying experience me as a teacher and a very enriching one as a student. At the end, the objectives of the session that they gained knowledge that can be used in practice and will be immediately able to do so. Reference List Bahn, D. (2001). Social learning theory: Its application in the context of nurse education. Nurse Education Today, 21(2), 110-117. Bastable, S. (2003). Behavioral objectives. In S. B. Bastable (ed.) 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The evaluation of learning and teaching. In S. Hinchliff (ed.) The practitioner as teacher (2nd ed., pp.159-177). Edinburgh: Bailliere Tindall. Heath, P. (2002). National Review of Nursing Education: Our Duty of Care, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Hospital Authority. Hospital authority head office operations circular no. 14/2006: reporting mechanism for notifiable diseases and other communicable diseases. [online] 2006 [cited 2006 Oct 22]. Available from: URL: http://ha.home/ho/ps/OperationsCircularNo14_2006_ReportingMechanismforNotifiablediseasesandotherCommunicableDiseases.pdf Mooney, M. & Nolan, L. (2006).A critique of Freire's perspective on critical social theory in nursing education. Nurse Education Today, 26(3), 240-244. Nursing Council of Hong Kong (2004). Core-Competencies for Registered Nurses (General). http://www.nchk.org.hk/paper/core_comp_english.pdf Paterson, B.L. & Pratt, D.D. (2007). Learning styles: Maps, myths or masks In L.E. Young & B.L. Paterson (eds.) 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E. (2004). Cognitive views of learning. Educational psychology (9th ed., pp.235-267). Boston: Pearson. Read More