Teaching

Background

Although a skilled educator makes teaching look easy, effective teaching is hard work! I quickly realized this in the one year that I was an adjunct at a small college in the Midwest. Consequently, I was intentional about gaining additional training and skills in effective teaching by completing the Duke University College Teaching Certificate as part of my training plan as a doctoral student. Mentored teaching experiences were also an important part of my training. In the first practicum, I taught in a hybrid online course, gaining experience with facilitating synchronous and asynchronous learning with graduate students. The second practicum was a large, first semester nursing course that met face to face twice a week. The two practica were very different experiences, but increased my skill and ability in facilitating learning in students at different points in their nursing career. Reflecting on my collegiate teaching experiences, and on the year that I taught kindergarten in the Dominican Republic, there are philosophies and practices that I have honed to be an effective teacher.

Philosophies & Practice

Understanding context is a critical skill for nursing. As an educator, I believe it is important to have conversations about the role of context regularly and often. The importance of a single vital sign, lab value, or statistic is minimal in the absence of context. Developing critical thinking skills in learners means building the skillset to look at the context of what is occurring and to synthesize the information to determine the best next action. In the Disparities in Health and Healthcare course, I led a class on cardiovascular health disparities in women. We looked at data from the American Heart Association’s Go Red campaign and the differences that emerge when you look at context and disaggregate the data. Embedding opportunities for students to practice looking deeper, and thinking critically about the course content, prepares them to be successful as a new nurse, or in the transition to an advanced practice nurse.

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Active learning promotes engagement and knowledge retention. Lecturing non-stop does not stimulate learning with 5 year olds, nor with adult learners. A tool that I have used in the classroom to facilitate deep learning, is the integration of concepts into active learning. I was a teaching assistant for the Wellness and Health promotion course for first semester nursing students where we introduce the topic of health education. One of the critical tasks of nurses is health education, and it is important skill for students to develop. I worked with the course faculty to develop an experiential learning activity, where we used film to introduce the topic of stress, and trauma, and how that applies to health education. We followed with structured didactic learning on principles of health education, and completed the learning activity with students developing an educational activity, and presenting it to elementary students. In the debrief we synthesized concepts on the experience of preparing materials for health education, delivering the content, adapting it for the learner, and in the context of what we had discussed about trauma informed care. Active learning allowed students to obtain new information, and to quickly apply that information to promote retention, and to stimulate deeper conversations about the topic because in applying the information we identified gaps in their learning.

The learning environment

I believe the classroom must be a safe space for learning to occur for all students. I am sensitive to some of the unique challenges related to imposter syndrome that can be especially difficult for some learners such as first generation students. Establishing classroom norms as a group in the beginning of the term is important to set the standard for how we will engage with each other. Modeling humility and acknowledging when I don’t have the answer, but also demonstrating how to use the available resources to find the answer, can also be helpful to students who struggle with imposter syndrome. Ultimately, being willing to share the knowledge I have learned, but also my journey, and knowledge that I am continuing to learn will create a learning environment where students can engage, ask questions, and feel safe being their whole selves.

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