Getting in the Mooood to learn

I have always loved shopping at Stew Lenard's, not only because the many in-store samples that let me try new things, but because the place is designed to help me to be in a better mooood to shop. Yesterday's shopping trip inspired me to relate some of these thoughts to teaching and learning:

1) Letting learners know WHY something is important to learn is part of the educator's job.
2) Showing learners how to direct themselves through information will make the learning personal.
3) Relating the topic to the learners' experiences helps people to construct their own knowledge.
4) People will not learn until they are ready and motivated to learn; and making it fun makes the process easier (here's the part about how Stew Lenard's relates)
5) This requires helping them overcome inhibitions, behaviors, and beliefs about learning.

By offering in-store samples, I was given the opportunity to try new products, and change my ideas. I had a good time while shopping, and was motivated to "construct" a cherry cake because I learned about the nutritional value of cherries from the store display, conversations with the produce staff and discovered the perfect beverage to accompany my cake from a sample and a suggestion.

Web 2.0 Tools in Medical and Nursing Schools

Social networking is a great tool for helping to create a collaborative learning environment. Increasingly, nursing students have been using blogs, wiki's and pod casts.

These tools help to build information literacy skills, no matter how rural the setting.

Here's an article about the use of Web 2.0 tools in Medical and Nursing education in which Lemley and Burnham investigate the use of social networking tools for nursing and medical education:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2605032/

In God we trust; everyone else must bring data!

I was delighted to read Pam Roe's Re-moo-ving the sacred cows of nursing

How evidence-based practice can update long-held beliefs

A select cut

A select cut of a dozen guiding principles for learning about computer technology in nursing education*

1. The professor does not know all the answers…
2. Collaboration, community, and teamwork are the backbone of online learning…
3. Students are encouraged, urged, and expected to act upon their own learning needs…
4. Online learning requires active participation, involvement, and effort. It is hard work.
5. Give and share resources, computer skills, and resources.
6. Take new risks, boldly go where no nurse has gone before…
7. No wimps. No whiners. There is too much to learn, and too little time.Learning about computer technology is incompatible with cowardice, whining, and complaining.
8. Try to find reliable, current web based resources.
9. Aim for a paperless course. Go green- use your screen.
10. Be creative, use critical thinking skills (after all, you ARE a nurse) Form educated opinions and be ready to defend them in a scholarly way.
11. Make it fun. Learning is easier that way. (See page 2 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, 1979).
12. The professor does not know all of the answers…
    *(with apologies to Barbara Carty’s Nursing Informatics)
    Please take some time to learn even more.
    Find out about some of the historical roots guiding technology in nursing education
    http://www.aacn.nche.edu/publications/WhitePapers/whitepaper.htm
    http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=129663
    Learn the lingo
    https://www.ncsbn.org/836.htm
    Read some research
    http://cade.athabascau.ca/vol15.1/gillis.html
    Take a tutorial
    http://e-articles.info/e/a/title/Guiding-Principles-Underlying-the-Design-of-a-Blended-Curriculum/
    
    

Some thoughts to chew on

Don’t Panic
I’ve been thinking for a long time about web-based nursing education, and while preparing for a class about the use of technology in nursing education I’ve been “chewing over” some great advice offered in Douglas Adams’s 1979 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It should be recommended reading to all nursing students who are anxious about computers because on page 2 of this book, in big, bold, reassuring letters Adams has placed the words “DON’T PANIC”. That way, when learning about Microsoft Office Suite http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/default.aspx students could refer to Adams, (page 2). Or when trudging through tutorials about: Creating a Power Point Presentation http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC011298761033
They can also consult Adams (page 2) for the necessary assistance. This also applies to another task that future nurse educators might encounter, namely, creating a grade book using excel. http://www.internet4classrooms.com/excel_grade.htm
In this instance multiple referencing to Adams’ book, and page 2 in particular might be helpful.

Selecting the best information

Nursing education is changing. Evolving technology, shifts in practice settings, and diverse student populations are placing new demands on the enterprise. Access to data is increasingly available, unlimited, and unprecedented. Nurse educators must look at an enormous amount of information and determine what is prime, choice, select or standard grade. Large areas of information can be divided, accessed and disseminated in smaller portions suitable across a wide range of clinical applications. Information now moves in all directions. No longer is there a top-to-bottom approach to learning.
Nurses require a new kind of know-how when it comes to knowledge transfer. Studies show that learning is most successful when it is relevant, collaborative, continuous and outcome-based. In nursing education Blogs are becomming learning tools.

More Cows...

Photo: Cows on water
Discussion:
Computers on Wheels, or c.o.w.s are being used more and more at the bedside to help nurses record and collect data, and document their care. A quick "google" search of the topic yielded over 800,000 results!
One of my nursing collegues reported that while point of care mobile devices have become more functional nurses must become more adept at using them. She reported an instance of inadvertently insulting a patient who mistook the term "cow" as a reference to the patient's weight-- and not to the computer on wheels!

Lecture: Four Nursing Theorists

Nurse educators are finding innovative ways to deliver information that involves active learning. The "sage on the stage" is another sacred cow.

I've decided that instead of a lecture or power point presentation about four nursing theorists, I'll present nursing theory versions of "two cows" theory.

Why? "two cow" jokes are widly circulated on the internet (see for yourself-- google two cows) they are reported to be a good example of "cross-cultural humor." They are concise, illustrative. irreverant and just plain fun:

Florence Nightingale has two cows. One got shot in the Crimean war, (and became a holy cow) the other helped her write "Notes" which moo-tivated the development of professional nursing.

Madeleine Leininger (Transcultural nursing) has two cows. While milking them she noticed the differences and similarities of their bovine beliefs, values, and cowpaths. Madeline was able to provide culturally congruent, meaningful, and beneficial milk from one, and allowed the other to wander freely to exploring the (how now) brown cow-nter culture.

Martha Rogers (Science of Unitary Being) has two cows. They are unceasingly transforming bovine energy with the rest of the universe. Within their view there is no dichotomie of cows, both cows are essentially one inseparable whole. Their milk is the actualizing of cow potential. One cow drifted off into space…

Jean Watson (Caring Science) has two cows. She cares deeply for both of them and feels united and connected to them. The cows get dizzy from moo-ving on cowpaths that move in concentric circles of caring from individual, to others, to community to world to planet earth, to the universe. They have no time to give milk.