Faculty And Students In Clinical Learning In Health Education. Clinical Course Faculty Teaching Strategies and Techniques in Health Education, Clinical Faculty Perspectives of What Does Not Work, Students’ Perspectives of What Teachers Do to Help Them Learn, Students’ Perspectives of What Teachers Do That Does Not Help Them Learn, Faculty and Students In Distance Education
Courses, Distant Faculty Perspectives of What Does Not Work
Clinical courses consisted of courses in which there was a clinical component in addition to the didactic component. Both undergraduate and graduate faculty and students were surveyed. Faculty were asked to provide tips and techniques for clinical courses, and to indicate what does not work in clinical courses. Students were asked what teachers do to help them learn and what teachers do that does not help them learn.
Distance education courses were those in which the course was offered with a physical distance between faculty and students, through interactive web-based learning or through the use of other technology. Faculty were asked to provide tips and techniques for distance education courses, and also to indicate what does not work in distance education courses. Students were asked what teachers do to help them learn and what teachers do that does not help them learn.
Clinical Course Faculty Teaching Strategies and Techniques In Health Education
- Address student fears and earn trust and respect
- Be patient and offer guidance to enhance student learning
- Case presentation
- Case studies
- Case studies with simulated patients
- Challenge but do not overwhelm students with a clinical assignment
- Clinical conferences
- Communicate the plan for each class, including break times
- Communicate via email to post announcements and changes in the schedule
- Competency-based education tools
- Convey a nonthreatening demeanor
- Create a nurturing environment
- Create learning experiences where students are not bogged down by staff demands
- Demonstration lectures
- Demonstrations
- Discuss case scenarios
- Do not give all the lecture notes to students ahead of time, so that they are encouraged to pay attention
- Evaluate strengths and weaknesses of each student daily
- Examples from clinical practice
- Faculty engagement with students
- Foster self-esteem
- Get to know students before taking them to the clinical area
- Give a practice math test so students know what to expect
- Give clear guidelines and expectations
- Give constructive feedback with specificity on how to improve
- Grade contracting
- Group learning
- Guide independent practice of procedures before clinical application
- Guide students to assess and document from a holistic perspective
- Guide students to identify their own learning needs and set goals for their clinical day
- Guide students to not prejudge patients
- Help students analyze their thinking underlying an error that they have made
- Help students learn to think for themselves by being accountable as caregivers
- Implement roundtable discussion after each clinical course, where students share salient experiences
- Include stories from the teacher’s practice that illustrate important points
- Include student exercises as part of the class
- Include visuals in presentations
- Involve students in learning
Further for Student Teacher Relation
- Lecture
- Maintain good relationships with clinical staff so that the environment is supportive of learning
- Morning rounds to each assigned client
- Ongoing student evaluation with a great deal of feedback, both positive and developmental
- Participate as an expert in the practice area where students are learning
- Point out subtle differences in practice
- Power Point presentations with handouts of the slides as study guides
- Practice so that the teacher walks the walk as well as talks the talk
- Practice what is preached
- Preceptor ships in clinical setting
- Proofread and edit notes with the student before they are written on the chart
- Provide a nurturing environment
- Provide clear objectives
- Provide handouts for students
- Provide a highly structured environment
- Provide opportunities for students to learn from each other as well as from the teacher
- Provide opportunities for students to observe the teacher in practice
- Provide repeated exposure to important content
- Provide students with opportunities to explore many ways of intervening
- References, including web resources
- Reinforcement of learning
- Repeat very important points several times through out the lecture
- Respect each student
More As Role Model
- Role model interactions with students and patients
- Role play
- Schedule a test review session after each test so students can evaluate their own learning
- Sequence learning tasks
- Show enthusiasm for teaching
- Spend time in pre-conference reviewing each student’s care plan for the day
- Stay available to the student
- Stay current in practice
- Student presentations
- Support student self-evaluation on a weekly basis
- Take time to help students with a procedure by guiding them through it
- Team building activities
- Tell stories
- Use a scavenger hunt to orient students to the new hospital unit
- Use as many pictures as possible in Power Point slides
- Use contracting for student learning
- Use experts
- Use humor when possible
- Use journaling
- Use multiple teaching modalities
- Use pictures from the Web
- Use simulations
- Use Socratic method to assist students to develop problem solving skills
- Use the Internet
- When many students fail to perform as the teacher expects, review in detail in formation they have been given
- Work with students in order to provide a richer clinical experience
Clinical Faculty Perspectives of What Does Not Work
- A clinical environment that promotes fear
- All lectures, all of the time
- Clinical objectives that are not clearly written
- Enhancing one’s power by being overly aggressive with students
- Evaluating students before they have time to learn
- Group projects where some do more of their share of work and others do less
- Increasing student anxiety by talking down to students and being overly critical
- Instructor who is not clinically competent
- Instructor who lets the students go at their own pace
- Lack of patience in guiding students
- Long class days
- Long videotaped lectures
- Prejudging a student by appearance or rumors from other faculty
- Providing expectations that are not clear
- Surprises on clinical evaluation because students have been misled by positive faculty remarks
- Class size too large
- Videos longer than 5-10 minutes
Students’ Perspectives of What Teachers Do to Help Them Learn
- Answer questions in detail
- Apply text material to real life situations through examples
- Are clear about expectations
- Are organized and prepared for learning experience
- Are patient and let the student work through problems without
telling the answers - Ask questions to focus the group on discussion
- Ask the question, “Why?”
- Build trust in the teacher-student relationship
- Discuss clinical situations, including what to do and why the steps are important
Further Help for Team
- Discuss student strengths and weaknesses individually
- Display an open personality
- Encouragement involvement and interaction
- Encourage students by telling them that they are doing a good job
- Engage in one-to-one discussion
- Expect the most from students
- Explain equipment in detail
- Facilitate learning
- Focus on student success
- Functions as a role model that shows students how to practice
- Give immediately
- Go into the patient’s room with the student for the first few times
- Have a knowledge base and expertise
- Have student exchange experiences at the end of each clinical day
- Help students focus on the patient from a holistic perspective
- Help students to go beyond the traditional textbook
- Incorporate different learning methods
- Offer constructive criticism
- Patiently talk the student through performance of a procedure
- Provide copies of notes and stick to the syllabus
- Provide a framework for learning and expectations
- Provide hands on experiences
- Provide nursing knowledge and reinforce theory with an emphasis on critical thinking
- Provide office hours
- Provide study guides to show important information
- Relate clinical stories and connect the story to what is being studied
- Relieve stress through humor, caring, and compassion
- Stay calm
- Review procedures with students before entering the patient’s room
- Start discussions that make you think
- Stay focused on topic content
- Tell stories about real patients
- Use case studies incorporating theory and critical thinking to arrive at a solution
- Use variety of resources
- Use visual tools
- Willing to work one-on-one with students at feedback
Students’ Perspectives of What Teachers Do That Does Not Help Them
Learn
- Adding to the students’ nervousness
- Not being approachable
- Assuming everyone knows the terminology
- Assuming students already know the content
- Assume students have acquired information in past courses
- Being unprepared
- Breathing down students back by staring at them
- Correcting students by yelling at them in front of the patient and family
- Demeaning students
- Drawing lectures from limited resources
- Expecting students to read the teacher’s mind
- Expecting the student to answer a question quickly
- Failing to explain concepts related to the slides
- Failing to use current technology
- Not having patience with students
- Injecting negativity into the learning experience
- Involving students in group work when the information needed to do the work is not provided
- Lectures all of the time
- Making students buy five textbooks and only use one of them
- Omitting practical information in clinical course lectures
- Not providing enough lecture time on assigned readings
- Not providing more days and longer hours for clinical practice
- Reading from lecture notes
- Reading from Power Point slides
- Requiring study guides for each of the areas covered in the course
- Requiring too much reading
- Straying from topic
- Telling student to “figure it out”
- Throwing students into unexpected situations
- Use of negative talk
Faculty and Students In Distance Education Courses
- Anticipate problems with the technology
- Avoid communicating unnecessary information and communicate often
- Be available
- Call on students who do not respond in the chat room
- Check all websites to which you refer students
- Create diverse course activities
- Demonstrate mutual respect for other faculty team members
- Demonstrate proficiency with information technology
- Develop teaching skills
Further Steps to Engage Students
- Engage the students in active learning
- Get to know the students
- Give detailed and specific instructions
- Identify a portion of class grade for participation
- Integrate activities that foster student interaction with faculty and peers
- Limit number of students in a chat room
- Link to other on-line information
- Offer synchronous group work assignments
- Participate as teacher and producer of the course
- Plan content from back to front
- Post the structural components of the course
- Post weekly course notes
- Promote student peer support
- Provide active learning activities
- Provide clear online instructions for each assignment
- Provide a framework for student lifelong learning
- Provide group work online
- Provide rapid response to questions
- Provide step-by-step plan for student success
- Put faculty and student addresses on the webpage
- Require group work and projects
- Require weekly reflections
- Review course content
- Seek peer support and feedback
- Use all of the facilities and resources available
- Use case studies and scenarios
- Use exercises to help the students learn online technology
- Distant Faculty Perspectives of What Does Not Work
- Assigning an excessive amount of work
- Avoiding long explanations of assignments
- Displaying indifference to students
- Failure to attend to student group participation
- Giving busy work to students
- Post unrelated materials on the course website
- Treating the course as self-study rather than distance education
- Using excessive Power Point slides
- Using passive learning strategies
- Waiting until the last minute to put course materials online
Students’ Perspectives of What Faculty Do to Help Them Learn
- Be as clear as possible about what is expected
- Discuss various topics on a discussion board so that all can see
the discussion - Encourage open communication
- Encourage student responsibility for assignments
- Give direction for further development
- Give feedback on work that has been completed
- Touch base with students frequently
- Keep students involved in learning by asking poll questions
- Make course announcements available to everyone
- Provide timely responses to questions
- Provide detailed written responses to assignments
- Provide for interaction with all members of the class
- Provide online opportunities for student contact outside of class
- Provide students with a way to reach each other in the class
- Recognize busy schedules of students
- Repeat questions before giving the answer
- Space out assignments over the term
Causing anxiety by not answering student questions
- Not communicating with the students regularly
- Not providing feedback
- Not returning assignments or answering questions in a timely manner
- Giving assignments that are difficult to understand
- Giving reading assignments that are overwhelming
- Not being available for immediate personal assistance
- Providing unclear answers to questions
- Putting too much responsibility on the student for learning