Learning for nursing students can be seen as mundane and old school with little opportunities for innovative learning strategies. Its time for nursing instructors to take the time to engage their students with some new strategies. Yes, these are still some of the same ideas that they teach in a 4 hour jam-packed lecture, but rather in a smaller setting with more opportunities for interaction.

Most nursing students work hard. Its a grueling 4 year degree program and typically the learning occurs not only in the classroom, but hands on in a teaching hospital providing direct patient care. The clinical time in the hospital can be exhausting with patient contact, observing, learning and applying theory to practice. Nursing instructors typically want the most learning opportunities for their students…how can we ensure they are gaining as much experience as possible.

Clinical time is spent doing as many “tasks” as we can. As there are more and more students with less clinical time, instructors need to maximize learning opportunities. Not only that, but depending on where a student is placed depends on what experiences they will gain. BUT…what if we developed nursing student tutorials that could help the students apply their classroom learning. before we get to the hospital? What if there was specific and standard learning tools that could be utilized by our program for the benefit of applying theory to practice?? Standard material that is used by clinical instructors during clinical time to ensure all students get the same educational experience.

The Flashback Pro is a downloadable educational tool that could be used for creating these “tutorials”. It appears easy to use for the beginner like me with many instructions as you go. Videos can be added in and special effects. The tutorials can even be downloaded to Youtube for other instructors to easily gain access!

Some ways that we can use Flashback would be with ECG interpretations, aseptic techniques, pathophysiology of a disease, ABG interpretation or even simple techniques like handwashing.

I have contemplated the subject of knowledge over the past few days. Where is knowledge headed? What is the future of teaching in a world where knowledge is becoming obsolete? Since I see myself as a Nurse first and teacher second, it becomes difficult for me to think about how things are changing as I am not directly located in the classroom, but a clinical setting. It also becomes a question of self reflection…what works for me to learn, to teach and to be effective at both.

Pavan Arora’s Tedtalk stuck with me. We all know that knowledge is changing, but how do we adapt. The idea of Access is huge. HUGE. How do we teach our children to access the knowledge and decipher, apply and assess. As a nursing instructor…I find that my students can not learn in a classroom or hospital ward everything they will need to know to be excellent nurses. They will need to know how to access the information needed, assess the validity and apply.

Teaching in a world where knowledge is obsolete could actually be reworded to suggest that the world shouldn’t seem so big in a world where knowledge is shared and accessible by all. If we are to make knowledge accessible by all, we can share and be creative in our delivery methods with standards to follow. Imagine all of the opportunities this could potentially open up to our students?

Nursing students could learn what wound care is effective in China, what homeopathic therapies work in Australia, how aseptic technique is the same in Alaska as here! Not only does it provide a platform on what others are doing around the world, it allows networks to form, partnerships across cultures and languages to merge and so much more!

As reflected on my children who are still in school and not as a nursing instructor, I felt that familiar wonder of how are we bringing the social networks into the classroom. At times it is frightening to think of all that is available to our children and what is changing at such a high speed. I found the above link interesting in terms of how we can use the social media to learn and how it can be used in our classrooms. What was interesting to see was the comparison of a classroom from 100 years ago comparing it to one today. There are still desks, students and a teacher-arranged differently, but humans are still learning.

The factor that concerns me the most is the moral aspect. What morals is my child being taught? In the first or second class, Brad (a fellow student) talked about how he feels cell phones should be allowed in classrooms and how they can be utilized…yes, I do listen Brad 🙂

It was then that my brain clicked in. Why are cell phones in the classroom seen as such a bad thing? Don’t get me wrong, I see the negatives….but when we explore the positives and discuss, the norms and values can be discussed as well. Etiquette needs to be discussed, boundaries and privacy talked about, the social rules and the moral implications need to be explored. That is part of teaching students in a world where social media is quickly becoming the norm.

Sept 24, 2019

My relationship with social media has been a bumpy, short road. I feel like the majority of people who started out on Facebook and have slowly progressed to Snapchat. I use Pinterest daily for creative inspiration and rely on google to search other topics. I also am a bit out of my league…have never tweeted or twittered and a blog of my own is over the top. But here I am🤷🏻‍♀️. Social media has always seemed almost scary- I read people posts that give way too much personal information about themselves or show inappropriate photos and think to myself often that less is more. I’m not the type to post frequently and there are rarely pictures of my inner circle posted. Things have to be pretty big for me to share. In my professional life I am also careful- I don’t want negative attention brought to my name through social media. Any upsides have included the use of my creative thoughts. I enjoy searching for new ways to do things like paint furniture or what to plant in my garden.

I have been putting this off…trying to get over it in my mind. Totally out of my comfort zone and wondering why and how. But- this will pass. I just have to take the first step and type. I keep saying I’m too old for this – but I’m not. I keep thinking I’m technologically challenged- but it’s not so bad. I keep thinking I don’t have time – but it doesn’t take long.