Teaching environment
Section 2 covered the importance of the teaching environment as part of the delivery of instruction. I will be instructiing in a hospital setting (new nursing students in clincal rotations). I know the hoospital can be a place of anxiety especially for brand new nursing students. Any suggestions on how I can make the enviroment less intimidating for them? I will definately orirrnt them to the layout of the facility and introduce them to staff, etc. Any other ideas?
Hi Mary! This is Jay Hollowell from MaxKnowledge/CEE. I am guest facilitating the course this week and appreciate your questions. Allow me to suggest three things I have tried while teaching/training in the medical environment. First, I briefly divided the nursing students into small teams, on the spot, and asked each team to come up with three things that the team felt would cause the mosy anxiety and/or challenges while in that learning environment. This showed them that they often shared the same fears, then I would address their top responses in a professional, but reassuring way. Second, I would have a hospital staff member additionally talk briefly about the environment and perhaps tell a personal, lighthearted story about when he/she was starting out and faced similar fears or challenges. Third, when instructing on concepts, procedures and applications, I would have a one page visual (acronym, chart, picture, model) that would sort of summarize the lesson for each instructional period to use as a simple review and a memory jog; it allowed the nursing students to see how things fit together, hence not so scary. Hope this helps! Jay.
Hi Mary,
There are several things you can do to help them get comfortable with the setting. Do a "walk about" through the hospital and have them fill out a form highlighting certain areas on a map that you give them. Have them do a treasure hunt where they seek signatures from hospital personnel at certain places through out the hospital. This works best if they do it in teams. You can create a Jeopardy games of Q&A about the setting.
The key is to get them thinking about the setting plus have fun learning about where they will be working and learning. The students will have fun with the setting and get settled into the environment very quickly.
Gary
I start the first day with an icebreaker. This gets the students to meet one another and to establish a nonthreatening environment where the students can begin to feel comfortable working with one another as well as comfortable sharing ideas and opinions during class discussions.
On the first day of their hospital clinical exposure, I introduced my students to the Charge RN. She was a warm middle-age Asian woman full of experience. She narrated her stories of how she became an RN. She went through the hardships, e.g., like her parents being poor and she had to borrow textbooks from her wealthy classmates, etc.She welcomed the students warmly and said, "I am here anytime for you". "No question is a stupid question">
Donita Ganzon, RN
It is important that the teaching environment is conducive to learning and teaching. As the saying goes " If students didn't learn, the teacher didn't teach." Creating a learning environment is the responsibility of the teacher, students and educational institution. It is therefore a partnership that needs to understood so all stakeholders are satisifed.
Hi David,
Well said. By creating a team effort for learning the students can see the buy in they need to have and the buy in you have already created through your planning and preparation efforts.
Gary
