The Influence of Mentor in Nursing Education - Term Paper Example

Write a critical reflection and evaluation of your performance as a mentor in workplace learning and assessing. Introduction The mentor in nursing education will need to establish authentic relationships with students grounded in mutual trust and respect so that students gain the self-confidence to achieve their potential in learning. The humanistic paradigm offers opportunities to relate to students as mentors and role models rather than primarily as evaluators. Such an approach is necessary in order to educate a student population that is far more heterogeneous now. The current research suggests that learning and student development are promoted through strategies aimed at getting to know students and connecting to students through more thoughtful, concerted means. Gillespie (2005) asserts that a connected student-teacher relationship is characterized by the teacher nursing with students so that students “experience self-confirmation of their existing capacities and, prompted by the example of the clinical teacher, become aware of potential capacities” (Gillespie, 2005, p. 215). When investigating student perceptions of effective and ineffective clinical instructors, Tang, Chou, and Chiang (2005) found that students perceived that the most effective clinical instructors were those having strong interpersonal relationships with students and rated “solves problems with students” as the highest rated item within that category (p. 190). This would suggest that working together with students and role modeling professional behaviors are powerful determinants of effective teaching (Tang, Chou, & Chiang, 2005, 187-192). The term mentor is used to denote the role of a nurse, midwife, or even a health visitor who facilitates learning and assess students in the practice setting. According to Department of Health, the mentor role is to facilitate learning across pre and post registration programmes. In order to do that, the mentor must supervise, support, and guide students in institutional practice where learning happens in a clinical environment. One of the main roles is assessment where implementation of approved procedures for assessment is to be executed by the mentors. They would thus be facilitators of learning in the practice setting, where they would manage and contribute to the experience of the student nurses (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 1-17). The Nursing and Midwifery Council has developed a framework to support learning and assessment in practice. This framework also defines and describes the requisite knowledge and skills that are needed to be applied in practice when they support and assess students undertaking registration programmes. This framework has eight domains with identifiable outcomes in the modern healthcare education as it is applicable to nursing. These include, establishing effective working relationships, facilitation of learning, assessment and accountability, evaluation of learning, creating an environment for learning, context of practice, evidence-based practice, and leadership (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 1-17). Reflection When I was mentoring a group of student nurses, to begin with, it was another responsibility since students on NMC approved preregistration nursing education programmes leading to registration on the nurses part of the register need to be supported and assessed by mentors (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 18-22). My designation was that of a sign-off mentor, and as an additional responsibility, I needed to make a final assessment of these students practice in order to confirm to the NMC that the required proficiencies for entry into the register had been achieved (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 23-25). When put to the task, I immediately understood that to be a good mentor, I need to become student of my own experience, and to facilitate this quality, I decided to reflect on my experience to learn something about myself and as a result will be better prepared to facilitate effective learning relationship with my mentees. This would help me to become a reflective practitioner, and once this is accomplished, this would model self-directed learning, which I sought to promote in my mentees (August-Brady, 2005, 519-521). I had adequate qualifications and necessary clinical expertise, but as I see things I am sure that is not all. Even though, these would help me to establish myself as a role model, this is not all. It has involved in it few other factors which are very essential. This would involve clarity and supportiveness. The mentor builds confidence to practice and standards and competence in each of her mentees (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 19-21). This can only be achieved through mutuality and a partnership orientation. In my work, I understood, I needed to bring perspectives to their profession with a total focus on their future as professionals since the method I employed was fostering learning by doing in the clinical area. I had to exercise extensive patience, which I developed in myself in order to develop a genuine interest in learning in them. Inspiring them was my motto, and I was able to achieve these through high regard for them (Bangert, 2005, 221-225). The NMC standards have told clearly that those who assess the students should be prepared appropriately to assess performance against the relevant standards laid by NMC. The idea behind this assessment process executed by the mentors is to assess competence in practice in order to confirm that the students are capable of safe and effective practice (Ferguson & Day, 2005, 107-115). I was aware of the specific NMC approved preregistration standards, and the first thing I did was I made my mentees aware about these standards. Assessment of the learning is important since as a sign-off mentor, I was responsible for their fitness of practice, and their knowledge, skills, and competence to take on the role of a registered nurse as per the standards so the interest of the public is not hampered (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 19-26). What I did was, I organised and co-ordinated their learning in practice. I supervised them in learning situations and provided them with constructive feedback on their achievements. For each session, the team including me would agree for a learning objective, and once that is set, I would monitor the process of achievement (Goldenberg, Andrusyszyn, & Iwasiw, 2004, 31-35). Skills, attitudes, and behaviours, all were assessment parameters. These were openly discussed with the mentees, and a consensus was arrived at about achievement or nonachievement (Fitzpatrick, 2005, 205). Assessment is futile without provision of learning and creation of learning environment. The learning environment is feasible only when there is mutual trust and respect. Only academic learning is not enough, and the mentees must be shown how they can integrate these in practice (Hagedorn, 2005, 22-29). I remembered all the time that the learning process is essentially individualized in that each mentees stage of learning was assessed and the process of learning was customised for that particular mentee. It was only possible through an ongoing and constructive support that would facilitate one learning environment to the other. Integrating learning from practice and academic experience would be the main goal. Critical reflections were encouraged to enhance further learning. This is an innovative approach, which is quite different from the traditional method. It demands a different mind-set regarding the learning objectives, the learning process and methods of evaluation or assessments. This also indicates a paradigm shift in the ways of assessment since the long hours of the end of year examination are replaced by a gradual process of continuous assessment, which helps mentees to use information to understand phenomena or problems and to apply knowledge to relevant context instead of displaying it (Koehler, 2004, 23-47). Discussion According to this framework, the mentor is required to foster professional growth and personal professional development, through support in practice, and this is essentially mentorship. This involves a constructive feedback, so they themselves are able to assess the future learning needs based on gaps in current knowledge and skills (Smith, 2006, 82-89). Standards of competency means there would be fails, and the mentor must have skills to manage failing students so they are inspired to enhance their performance and capabilities of safe and effective practice (Speziale & Jacobson 2005, 230-235). This needs an understanding of the failure, its implications in practice and in future career. Valid performance assessment is assessment that is closely in line with the kind of learning experiences in which the students actually engage. Learning through reflection is also encouraged, as experiential learning and problem-focused approaches are the main approaches used (Miller, 2005, 35-37). The reflection process provides students with an opportunity to think about and interpret their experiences in the clinical learning settings. They have an opportunity to share their knowledge and understanding of their experiences with one another, noting ways in which their learning experiences were meaningful to them (Billings & Halstead, 2004, 27-31). They also do self-assessment, identifying gaps in their knowledge and acting on those gaps as self-directed learners. Promotion of reflective learning is one way of trying to develop reflective practitioners (August-Brady, 2005, 297-304). The mentor must contribute to evaluation of student learning and assessment experiences, so she can propose aspects of change that are indicated through such evaluation. To this end, a range of learning experiences will be used to meet the defined learning needs that involve patients, clients, care givers, and the professional team (Parker, 2006, 1-56). This evaluative process must be very critical since the ultimate outcome of learning would be indicated by the learning environment (Siu, Laschinger & Vingilis, 2005, 459-469). The mentor has responsibility to assess, evaluate, and identify aspects of learning environment that would need to be enhanced. Thus, the mentor would contribute to development of environment that fosters effective practice. She is in charge of implementation of effective practice, its evaluation, and dissemination. The idea behind these is to develop critical thinking skills of the mentees in both theory and practice. With these, they will be able to deal with complex practice issues and constant change based on knowledge gathered. A competent nurse would be able to defend or argue coherently for or against decisions made in practice (Norman et al., 2005, 150-158). To this end the mentors must themselves have working experience in the clinical area where the mentees are being mentored. She will be accepted by the students only when she has clinical currency and capability in the concerned clinical area. Moreover, as a certified mentor, she must possess a working knowledge of current programme requirements, strategies on current practice assessments (Kelting-Gibson, 2005, 26-36). She must keep herself abreast with the relevant changes in education and practice. Assessment in such a curriculum poses a challenge, because traditional methods of assessment are usually not relevant to assessing learning in such situations. Therefore plans for evaluation should be made during the planning phase, including developing instruments for assessing learning (Truemper, 2004, 562-564). Continuous assessment and criterion-referenced assessment are favoured. Some authors have recommended a comprehensive approach to mentee assessment because the assessment of this nature gives a holistic picture of learning that has taken place with three domains, cognitive, affective and psychomotor. This comprehensive approach incorporates three main approaches to assessment, performance-based, knowledge measurement approach, and the comprehensive approach, which brings together the other approaches. Tools applied in measuring knowledge are essays, reports, tests and examinations. Performance-based approaches mainly assess the performance of students during their clinical activities, through observational methods. The performance-based approach assesses all domains required in a competence being assessed. A wide range of tools are used in performance assessment including logbooks, learning contracts, reflective learning diaries, supervisory visits, peer assessment, mentoring and monitoring of attendance (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 27-31). The process of designing units starts by establishing what learning will take place as a result of this unit, with the intention of identifying desirable results. Questions such as what should the mentees know and be able to do on completion of this placement which is being mentored, what is desirable from the learners in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude on completion of this module, are important at this stage. Once the desirable results are established, assessments should be designed and be aligned with the learning goals. This stage entails determining acceptable evidence of learning, which otherwise are known as assessment criteria, establishing how one will know if the mentees have achieved the desired results and met the standards. What will be accepted as convincing evidence that the students have achieved the expected or desirable outcomes must be established (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 27-36). Assessment should be linked to learning and instruction and used to facilitate the development of the learner. The main purpose of assessment is twofold, to identify areas and degree of competence and to provide feedback for learning. It is also used to determine the basis for remedial action, whether to allow students to progress to the next level or whether to keep them at the same level. It helps the students determine where they are in the process of learning and where they need to be in order to achieve their outcomes (Del Bueno, 2005, 278-282). Integrated assessment refers to the use of a number of assessment methods to assess the learner’s competence, and to assist in the process of making a decision about whether a learner is competent or not. Performance tasks may range from demonstrations of skills, development of oral or visual presentations, all dealing with real clinical problems in the clinical setting. Planning and designing assessments require the mentor to establish what the mentees need to know and be able to do, how they will demonstrate what they have learned, what resources and environment must be available to ensure that all learners succeed and how the mentor can structure or pace her mentoring so that mentees are prepared to perform well. Answers to these questions should serve as a guide to assessment of learning (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 27-31). Conclusion In conclusion, I must say that my performance as a mentor was up to the mark, although since I was a new mentor, there might have as well been some gaps. As per NMC requirements, I had requisite nursing education to perform as a mentor, and I was qualified to provide the full range of support and assessment required to meet the needs of my preregistration mentees. I met the relevant standards of proficiency for preregistration nursing education. I participated in the mentor preparation programme by NMC, of which 5 days are protected learning time in both academic and practice settings. I experienced work-based learning in the clinical setting where I mentored a student under the guidance of a qualified mentor, and she asked me to critically reflect on that experience. Following qualification, I maintained developed my knowledge, skills, and competence as a mentor through regular updating annually (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 27-31). In reality, I had enough time to plan my schedule with my mentee, and I extended support to her learning experience through mostly supervision in the clinical area. Some of the time, I used to observe her working independently. Time was an issue always; however, through planning and coordination and with the help of other interprofessional team, we were able to achieve our objectives. I made sure that my mentees keep an ongoing achievement record along with a brief narrative of the total learning experience, where evidence for NMC outcomes and competencies were analysed, and areas or further support and supervision could be identified. Most of the assessment was accomplished through direct observation of performance in practice. In some cases, help of simulator laboratory was sought. In the simulation laboratory sessions, I was available throughout to provide a summative assessment. As has been highlighted earlier I personally designed, used, and evaluated each assessment strategy, and the mentees were explained about their performance requirements. It must be stated that the only hindrance in this process was my inexperience, but I sought help from other senior and experienced mentors to guide me during different times, so I could execute the assessment process and support for my mentees’ learning in an appropriate manner as per NMC requirements (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2008, 27-31). Reference List August-Brady, M. (2005). The effect of a metacognitive intervention on approach to and self-regulation of learning in baccalaureate nursing students. Journal of Nursing Education, 44, 297–304. August-Brady, M. (2005). Teaching undergraduate research from a process perspective. Journal of Nursing Education, 44, 519–521. Bangert, A. W. (2005). 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