Let Explores key teaching patterns, ethical considerations, and evidence-based approaches to enhance nursing instruction and foster critical thinking in nursing students or future professionals. Philosophical Foundations for Excellence in Nursing Teaching and Patterns.
Philosophical Foundations for Excellence in Teaching
Excellent teaching is based on deliberately selected values and ideas. Excellent teaching is practice thoughtful reflection and action that occur in synchrony, in the direction of transforming the world (Chinn, 2004b). Praxis is a circular, ongoing process in which you examine the underlying ideas you wish to put into practice, form your approach in the classroom and put it into practice, examine what actually happened in light of your ideas, refine your ideas and adjust your practice , then move through the cycle again.
What you seek for yourself and your students becomes the same as what you do as a teacher. Even if you assume that you do not have a philosophy of education, as a teacher, your actions are formed by assumptions about what education should be, how you should act as a teacher and what is important in your teaching.
Some of these hidden philosophies are sound; others you will want to discard or revise once you examine the ideas that give shape to your actions. In some cases, you will start out with something that is going on in the classroom that is dissatisfying, and will discover that the root of the problem involves a value or a fundamental belief that you do not share. This process of exploring the meaning of what you practice in the classroom is the start of forming your own deliberately chosen philosophy of teaching.
Who You Are and How You Teach
This article provides an overview of how philosophies influence nursing education, and the philosophical perspectives on which nursing knowledge and theory rest. Philosophies clarify the values and assumptions that underlie how we view the world and, in turn, how we interact.
Theories, which are based on underlying philosophies or assumptions, provide a more structured explanation of the dynamics that come together to form experience. Philosophies address questions like “Why is this important?” and “What does this mean?” Theories address questions like “How does this happen?”
This article focuses on underlying philosophical ideas that are fundamental to the discipline of nursing, both in theory and in practice. To begin exploring philosophies for nursing education, consider the statements about students and teachers. As you read each statement, revise it as needed to reflect your own personal belief.
Each of these statements reflects a particular philosophy of education, and there are theories of learning and education that are grounded in one or more of these statements. If these statements are taken as a literal description of all students and teachers, clearly they are overgeneralizations. As theoretical propositions, they reflect a relationship between two or more concepts that might be accurate to reality, but that are open to empirical testing and ultimate revision based on the empirical evidence.
The critical thinking statements about philosophy reflect underlying beliefs about human nature and the responsibility of teachers, and they guide how teachers plan and implement their teaching practices. Consider phrases such as “students are a blank slate,” or “students learn best when …” These types of statements, followed by statements that prescribe a particular teacher responsibility, are grounded in a patriarchal philosophical assumption of a subordinate student and a dominant teacher who knows better than the student.
They also reflect a pedagogical approach to education, or one that is grounded in assumptions about learners who like children, lack experience and knowledge. Phrases that focus on students as agents, such as “students learn best when they perceive a need to know …” reflect andragogy, an approach to education that is grounded in the assumption that learners are mature and capable of actively participating in the learning experience.
Some equate pedagogy to educational approaches for children and andragogy to educational approaches for adults (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2005). It may be more effective to identify these terms not with age or developmental state, but rather with the assumed needs of the learner. If adults are new to a field of learning, they may initially lack the ability to participate actively in the learning experience and will benefit from a teaching approach that assumes their need for a great deal of guidance and direction in the learning process (pedagogy).
As mature learners, bright school-agers, many teens, and most adults, gain early experience with the material, and quickly progress toward the ability to co-create the learning experience, at which time the teaching approach can shift to encourage their active participation ation (andragogy). A phrase such as “students retain only what they will use” is grounded in a pragmatic philosophy, or a general world view that assigns the most value or worth to that which is useful, or functional.
A phrase such as “students are motivated to earn good grades” reflects a teleological philosophy, meaning that actions are directed by the purpose they serve, rather than by their causes. The phrase “students will cheat whenever they can” reflects an underlying philosophy of inherent evil in all people, whereas the phrase “students generally try their best” reflects an underlying philosophy of inherent good in all people. Clearly, some of these philosophical positions are incompatible with one another. It is illogical to hold simultaneously the opposing beliefs that all people are inherently good, and that all people are inherently bad.
In most of the previous examples in which students are assumed to be evil or bad, however, the teacher is implicitly assumed to be good, well-intended, or at least well motivated. This kind of philosophy reflecting a struggle between good and evil is common in cultures that are founded on a Judeo-Christian philosophy in which the struggle between good and evil originated at the time of creation. In contrast, it is also possible to assume that such a struggle does not exist and that people can be capable of evil but generally reach for a higher good (Noddings, 1989).
It is no easy task to sort out one’s own personal philosophy, and most people have inconsistencies and contradictions in their values and views that are difficult to address. Every nurse educator has a personal history grounded in culture, religion, and social and political traditions that have become engrained in our thinking certain world views, some of which we struggle to change or overcome, and some of which we hold dear. To begin to form and subsequently to examine one’s own philosophy of nursing education, it is necessary to reflect actively on the questions.
Patterns of Knowing or Fundamental Ideas That Form Nursing as a Discipline
The following sections provide ideas about each of the three areas of reflection enumerate, emphasizing issues to consider as you engage in your own reflection. Barbara Carper (1978) examined early nursing texts for their philosophical perspectives and identified four fundamental patterns of knowing that underpin nursing knowledge. The four patterns are:
- Empirics, the science of nursing
- Ethics, the moral component of nursing knowledge
- Personal knowing, the inner experience of nursing
- Aesthetics, the art of nursing
These four patterns of knowing have become widely accepted as underlying nursing knowledge and practice. White (1995) proposed a fifth pattern:
- Sociopolitical knowing, the context of nursing At least several, sometimes all, of these five patterns of knowing are typically reflected in nursing school philosophies in some manner.
This fact indicates that as a principle, nursing faculty tend to recognize fundamental patterns of knowing in their course content and activities. Consider the philosophy of the program in which you currently teach. If your program does not have a philosophy, find one from another program, or see for example (Mission and Philosophy, School of Nursing University of Connecticut, 2004).
As you read any curriculum philosophy document, you can examine it in light of each of the fundamental patterns of knowing. If you find that any of the patterns are simply not reflected, then you can conclude that an essential component of nursing knowledge is likely to be neglected in the courses that are taught. Or, if you find one or more of the patterns to be overly predominant, then the other patterns are likely to be neglected in the course content. As you examine your chosen document, consider the following.
Empirics Pattern
Empirics are typically the dominant pattern of knowing in nursing curricula. As you examine your school’s philosophy, consider to what extent empirics is emphasized, and make a note of your observation. When focusing on empirics, the philosophy will contain phrases that refer to: nursing theory and theory from other disciplines, the sciences in general, and medicine.
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