Fieldwork Teaching in a Hong Kong Hospital - Personal Statement Example

Running Head: FIELDWORK REPORT Fieldwork Report of This is a report of my fieldwork teaching that took place on September 18, 2008. This brief essay will delineate several aspects of my teaching session and a description my encounters with my students in the class room. While exploring this experience, I have an opportunity to reflect on the session, and in all probability, I may find out areas that went well, areas where I could have performed better, and through this I can consolidate my learning as a nurse teacher. The nurse teacher must apply a theoretical framework to design the content of the curriculum with the objective being facilitate both short and long term learning so that students are able to use the learning during practice. Moreover, teaching is basically connecting and communicating with the students to facilitate the process of learning. While reporting this session, I will also examine these aspects. Introduction Being a senior registered nurse in a Hong Kong Hospital, it is part of my duty to teach the fellow nurses and nursing students. In my work as an infectious disease nurse, coming across patients with infection is a daily routine, but as a nurse, I must be able to follow the hospital guidelines regarding infection containment. There are certain theoretical principles that guide these infection prevention policies, and isolation is one of them. Like every hospital, our hospital also sends suspected patients to isolation so spread of a particular infection and related contagious disease is prevented (Hospital Authority, 2006). There are certain places where such a patient is to be restricted during the span of the disease, and once the patient is no longer contagious, the patients is discharged to a step-down unit. The relevance of these guidelines are to be understood by the students and nurses, so they can follow the hospital guidelines accurately based on their understanding on the topic (Preventing Transmission). After I was entrusted to conduct a teaching session, I made thorough preparation to design the course content, the audiovisual aids, and hand out questionnaire to assess knowledge of the participants at the end of the session. The date of my session was scheduled to be on September 18, 2008. Report on the Session The session was held on September 18, 2008, in the hospital lecture theater. It was a well illuminated, spacious sound-proof room with state of the art and comfortable seating arrangement. There was a modern public address system, and the teacher is supposed to talk through it. The audiovisual head sets were available for each student, but since the group was large, all new headsets could not be arranged for all. At the end and also in the feedback form, quite a few of the students complained about disturbed hearing, and sometimes, they could not even follow the lecture (Bahn, D., 2001). There was a podium, where I was standing and talking, and the podium had been structured in such a manner that all students can have an equal view. There was computer set up in the room, an internet connection, and the computer was connected to an LCD projector. The functions of these were checked and rechecked before the session began so technical failure does not happen. I must accept that once on the podium, I was feeling a little shaky, by voice was dry, and was perplexed for a moment or two, not able to pick my words. However, I was careful to demonstrate openness of my personality, and in the introduction while setting my topic, I made it clear that we shall learn together. This broke the ice, and a healthy learning environment was set up immediately (Bastable, S., 2003). I also informed that whenever they think they are having difficulty following, they are welcome to stop me and ask questions, and I would heartily entertain them. I also mentioned that there are time constraints in the programme, and they should not ask anything unnecessary or irrelevant during the session. At the end of the session, there is provision for a five-minute discussion, where any question will be entertained. Later while reflecting on this, I felt, I should not have told them, since with this some students may hesitate to ask questions, and that can defeat the purpose of this training that learning would happen (Sternberger, C.S., 2002). The participants comprised of a consolidated group of 20 people. The group was a mixed one with students and registered nurses. The day before, I paid a visit to the class room, to check whether everything was in place. The topic was notified to every participant, and it dealt with isolation protocols of our hospital, isolation facilities, norms and categories of isolation facilities, isolation facilities for infectious diseases, communication and advice on use of isolation facilities, and knowledge on when the isolation is to be discontinued and the patient may be discharged to a step-down unit (Nursing Council of Hong Kong, 2004). Initially, I felt very nervous almost to the extent of dropping down my notes. However, as time progressed, I was able to quickly connect to my audience always making an eye contact and keeping my posture confident, communication easy and simple, and always trying to make the relevant points taking care not to provide overwhelming information (Paterson, B.L. & Pratt, D.D., 2007). It seemed that the students began to like the session as it went on, and they appeared engaged and actively participating in the session. I also decided to keep my teaching practice oriented so the relevance is established immediately and both the goals of short and long-term learning are met (Beitz, J. M., 1996). The whole course was presented in six five-minute modules with the use of powerpoint as a visual aid. The powerpoint presentation was prepared meticulously beginning with an introduction, where basic principles of nursing management of contagious diseases were discussed along with explanation of some terminology that are used in practice. In my view, this was necessary to orient the participants to the program, although I felt that this would be supernumerary for those who are already nurses (Condell, S. L., & Elliot, N., 1989). Since the objective of the session was to familiarize the students with isolation facilities and their uses in our hospital as per available guidelines, the next part dealt with the isolation facilities and their categories (Wong, D., 2008). The participants visibly appreciated the pictures in the powerpoint slides, since they knew these facilities existed, but they had never seen one. Along with this, my commentary included stories from my personal experiences as an infectious disease nurse * Cowan, D.T., Norman, I. & Coopamah, V.P., 2005). This influenced and inspired people, and they were seen keenly following my lecture and were taking notes. It happened several times that the student nurses stopped me and asked questions. This indicated active participation and discussion of topics within the presentation, and they came up with questions frequently. Thus it can be said that the session was informative and audience could relate to it. I explained the rationale and logic of isolation precautions and implementation in relation to different infectious diseases, and I described these diseases from my personal experience in the ward. Naturally, the student nurses were very curious about these, but I have a feeling that the registered nurses participating in the session was not much happy. They wanted more academic information to correlate science with practice (Heath, P., 2002). Considering the learning goals and the objectives at the end of the session and more importantly considering the learning needs of the youngest students, I decided otherwise. The next five minutes was devoted to discussion about communication and advice regarding the use of isolation facilities explaining the scientific background of such advice (Duncan, P., 2008). I expected that on completion of the lecture, the learner should be able to provide efficient, appropriate, and effective isolation care to an infected patient. I decided to evaluate the learning through a questionnaire after discussion of the guidelines about discontinuation of isolation and discharge to a step-down unit. I also planned a printed feedback form about this training session. Moreover, I created beforehand as glossary of terminology and definitions about frequently used terms in practice and during this session. Very brief explanations of infectious disease, their contagious nature, nursing management of isolation, and need for isolation were also printed in another handout, and I distributed these to them before the session began. Following the session, there was very open discussion about doubts and concerns, and I must admit again that I was overwhelmed with the response, and it continued for 20 more minutes in place of scheduled 5 minutes (Mooney, M. & Nolan, L., 2006). I feel the session provided information, which was beyond the range of the usually informative websites or academic text books of isolation practice in contagious or infectious diseases in manner that is relevant to the practice of participating students. 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. The visual aids used in the session in the form of powerpoint were of the greatest benefit, since it facilitated their learning, and I felt very happy that I took weeks to prepare and revise them to cater to their needs. The presentations were displayed through projectors, and everyone was given headsets so that they can listen to the lecture clearly. We had also conducted a check before conducting the session to ensure that the audiovisual system was effective for the audience (Quinn, F.A. & Hughes, S.J., 2007). However, some of them did not work properly, and this is entirely due to my fault of not being able to check each one individually. This should not have been happened on the face of extra care that I had taken to prepare for this session. At the end of the session, feedback was taken from every person who attended the training. It was very gratifying to see that most of them had mentioned the training as more than satisfactory (Ben-David, M.F., 2005). However, the audiovisual aids were not very satisfactory for some people. The questionnaire assessment of learning produced 100% successful learning (Brady, A., 2005). While evaluating my own performance, I can score my performance as 8/10. I did the explanations very well where I dealt in detail about contagious infectious diseases. I made them aware about the consequences of failure to implement relevant isolation strategies specific for a particular disease. The isolation facilities were also explained in detail along with pictures of hospital. As received in the feedback, the explanation method was good and audience felt it to be informative. I should not have felt shaky and nervous in the beginning, and my confident body language would set the tone of the classroom communication (Tovey, M. D. & Lawlor, D.R. 2004). Moreover, the time was a matter of constraint in that giving a lot of information in a short time may overwhelm and confuse the student in such a manner that the important information that would meet the objectives of both short and long term learning may be missed. The alternative option of cutting short information again is dangerous since that can precipitate disengagement, and students may miss vital information necessary for learning and practice (White, R. T., 1988). The mix in the learner group was also not conducive, since they differ in knowledge and experience both, and their learning needs are different. Next time, I would look for a batch of students of either students or nurses, so the curriculum and content may be customized. The audiovisual setup landed in a technical failure despite using the latest equipments. Since we had 20 people in the audience, there were few sets that were used few times earlier and hence were not as good as the others. Next time onwards, I would myself check each head set 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 (Williams, B., 2001). The teaching environment was very pleasant, and the supporting staff was very helpful which made the teaching very comfortable. The enthusiasm and involvement of the students were very inspiring (Eaton, A., 1999). The projectors and slides were used very effectively, and the power point presentations were also projected across the auditorium so that everyone can have equal view and follow the lecture. The handouts were appreciated very much. My presentation and body language were calm and confident and at the same time welcoming and homely so people do not have any barrier to their learning (Woolfolk, A. E., 2004). Overall, 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. I went up to people to ask them if they had understood or whether they wanted any help with the presentation with an attempt to make this session interactive and interesting. Specially the students who were hesitant; I put extra effort to make them feel more comfortable. The audience consisted of two sets of people. There were few registered nurses and few others 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; lacked practical knowledge of such things. 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 to enable the students a clear view of everything. For me it was more of a learning experience than a teaching experience, and this reflection would help me to better my performance as a teacher. 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.) Nurse as educator: Principles of teaching and learning (2nd ed. pp.319-337). Boston: Jones & Bartlett. Beitz, J. M. (1996). 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