Herzing University Online

The Nurse Educator Role

Applying Teaching Strategies

Teaching Strategies

Teaching methodologies have evaluated from simple questioning techniques to the most advanced practical education methodologies today. However, no single teaching methodology works for all. Based on age, educational background and profession, different people are differently taught. On the issue of diabetes, the patients as well as their family and the community need to be educated. This task is done by physicians and the nurses. The nurses can design plans that can help to teach different strategies to different type of individuals and their families that will help them and convince them to adopt healthy life styles. These strategies can be modified according to demographic factors and nature of disease.

Influence of Learner Characteristics on Teaching Strategies

The short life of useful information has dramatically changed the teaching strategies in healthcare (Russell, Comell, and Wright, 2007). Besides the nature of information, the patient health conditions also require doctors to apply different teaching strategies. For instance when the learner has quadriplegic which is complete paralysis of the body from the neck down, the teacher cannot include physical activities including movement of limbs to teach. Rather only verbal exercises are conducted and the patient is taught through mental not physical exercise. As the age grows, the teens also require to be taught using dynamic and interesting teaching strategies. The scope of the teaching i.e. individual or group or the family also has influence on the teaching strategy. The deaf is taught with visuals and the mentally impaired is often taught as a child even if his age is above forties (Russell, Comell, and Wright, 2007).

The teaching strategies for diabetes are planned to help the patient, his family as well as the society to make healthier life decisions. The teaching strategy focuses on how to improve the quality of life by adopting the meal plans and dropping unhealthy food like soft and fizzy drinks and tea that are major source of extra sugar (Russell, Comell, and Wright, 2007). The meal plans as well as the individual therapies motivate individuals to develop a family culture that avoids factors leading to diabetes. The meal plans are designed with the help of physician according to the individual needs rather than developing a universal meal plan for all. However, for a family, on the basis of age, gender and/or cultural factors, some similar food items can be advised or forbidden.

The patient can be taught how the meal plan is effective to prevent diabetes. The learner characteristics like mental disability, deafness, age, generation can be overcome by adopting different teaching methodologies. The physician can select to take help of pictures, videos, graphs and facts.

Creative presentations, handouts and surveys help to convince adults as well as teen to understand the importance of balanced meal and avoiding unhealthy meals. The factor of creativity is added to get attention of the audience and to retain the information in the minds of patient, families and the community.

Expectations of the Nurse Educator in Development of Learning Opportunities

The role of nurses has changed much more than any other medical profession. The nurses are relatively more empowered today. There are registered nurses that do many of the tasks that the doctors used to perform in past. Bahn (2007) studied that the nurses need to have more knowledge about patient history and the disorder that he has. This helps in implementing the teaching and learning plans. Better the nurses are at understanding the disability, better they can plan the lecture so that maximum knowledge is understood and retained by the student. Besides the age factor and the nature of ailment, the nurses are also expected to know the ethnical and cultural differences. Not every patient demands same level of attention and help. Hence the nurses are expected to know the needs of each member in the class and to respond according to these needs. The generation and age factor is also critical in planning the teaching session. The nurse expected to do a research on and then to guide the lecturer on how to deal with the class audience that may be a mix of old and young (Bahn, 2007).

The formal nurse education and certification is very important. The nursing courses are designed such that they help in understanding not only the disease but also the patient and the characteristics of patients. The nurses are taught to use different tools to teach patients the importance of avoiding factors causing diabetes. The simple repetition of facts will not do the job simply. Rather the patient, family and the community needs to be effectively taught how the health deteriorates and the life is affected when a patient has diabetes. The nurses’ education enables them to understand the disease, communicate it to patient and family and call them to action.

Teaching Strategies Table

Teaching Strategy Choice for Diabetes Education

Learner Characteristic

Patient

Family

Community

Quadriplegic

Individualized meal plan matching healthy personal lifestyle

Education regarding diabetes and nutrition therapy

Jointly agreed objectives for lifestyle changes

Mental Impairment

Visual display of Complications from Diabetes

Focus on Exercise and Diabetes

Care based attitude adoption

Deaf

Visual display of Complications from Diabetes

Teaching non-verbal languages

Slideshow of cause and effect of Diabetes

Reads at Second Grade Level

Interaction and group discussions

Relationship management tips

Understanding enhancement teaching

Teen

Communicating diabetic cause and effect through testing blood glucose levels before and after meals

Creative method adoption to communicate hazards of diabetes

Consistent yet slow inculcation of health messages

Male

Cause and effects of diabetes

Emphasis on relationship of diabetes with age and gender

Teaching by example how rate of diabetes varies among genders

Asian Indian

1. Inter-ethnic interaction/discussion

2. Putting light on unhealthy eating pattern

Family interactions with the example cases of diabetes focusing on cultural factors leading to unhealthy lifestyle

Population analysis to find number of diabetes patients

Do not speak English

1. Nonverbal communication strategies

2. Showing charts where healthy food is tick-marked and unhealthy meal is crossed

Showing pictures of families suffering with diabetes or stories of breadwinner family member that got diabetes

1. Community analysis in bar graphs to tell pattern of diabetic population in a community

2. Showing unhealthy meals along with unhealthy people to provoke community to adopt healthy eating patterns

Learner Characteristic

Nursing Staff

Basic Nursing Education

Tactile Learning Preference

Developing creative content

1. Undergraduate and/or

2. Diploma in Nursing

Naturalist Learning Preference

Syllabus showing natural causes and natural preventions against diabetes

1. Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) and/or

Learning Disability for Reading

Story telling/showing to recall how diabetes is called

1. Master’s Degree in Nursing MSN

Adult Learners

Facts-based statistical reports on diabetes

1. Master’s Degree in Nursing MSN

Generation Y

Focusing on how to have healthy old age

1. Undergraduate and/or

2. Diploma in Nursing

Asian Indian

Involving cultural values associated with happy healthy life

1. Undergraduate and/or

2. Diploma in Nursing

English is Second Language

Pictorial depiction of cause/effect of diabetes

1. Undergraduate and/or

2. Diploma in Nursing

References

1) Bahn, D., (2007), “Reasons for post registration learning: Impact of the learning experience,” Nurse Education Today, 27(7), 715-722

2) Russell, A.T., Comell, R.J., and Wright, D.L., (2007), “Teaching Strategies Promoting Active Learning in Healthcare Education,” Journal of Education and Human Development, 1(1), Retrieved from: http://www.scientificjournals.org/journals2007/articles/1025.htm