Dear Future Students..

Dear Future Students,

You are all very lucky that I, as your educator, paid attention during grad school. The ways I have grown as an educator so far are innumerable.  Upon the completion of my most recent course, which focused on technology, I have gained incredible insight on how to optimize YOUR education using engaging, interactive and fun technologies! I have learned and really understood the NEED for technology in the 21^st century. I sort of viewed teaching as a one-dimensional sort of thing, and I was anxious about how I would “spice it up” for you all.

Our culture and society are constantly changing with advances in technology, it’s my due diligence to ensure that I keep up with that within our classroom. I need and want to connect you to the vast resources out there. My goal is to assist you in becoming as well rounded as possible. I will max out my potential as your teacher to teach you in a way that is exciting and memorable. This is such a unique experience for you and I hold in my hands the power to make it something special for you. With my knowledge of technology and my creativity and open-mindedness, we can get through the journey together, and you can expect me to give you the best opportunity to learn all that you can, in a way that makes sense to you.

Your Teacher,

Alyssa Kaczmarek 

Being Tech Savvy

The last 5 weeks have been a whirlwind. Here I was, thinking this would be an easier course (relatively). I soon found myself both overwhelmed and intrigued with the vastness that is nursing informatics.

Luckily, I was born in a generation that embraced technology and from a very young age learned the basics and beyond. I can navigate most any computer and feel comfortable and confident learning EMR and other computer systems. However, this course really made me realize I have to step up my informatics game. Technology is only going to advance farther, and with the help of the techniques and information I’ve learned in this class, I feel more prepared to facilitate the learning of my students. 

 

As with anything, continuing education serves to keep practicing nurses up to date on advances in health care, including informatics. As continuing educations is most often mandatory, I believe it is my duty to seek out specific courses and credits related to informatics. This article explains why technology is important in the classroom on all levels of education, an as mentioned in previous responses, I strive to be an educator who can appreciate each student as an individual. Technology serves as a way to engage with all different personalities, abilities, ages, and learning styles. I’d like to work on this as an educator, and I feel that the more opportunity I have to work different things, the better I will be at integrating them in to my teaching.

I’ll admit it. Even though I am somewhat of a technology native, I have a lot more to learn. I consider myself a “modifier” when speaking of competency in nursing informatics. I have a lot to learn and the good thing is that I am open to learning! The biggest hurdle (as with anything) is acknowledging that I don’t know it all and feeling comfortable with accessing resources to gain more knowledge.

Feed Forward Assessment

The concept of  “Feed Forward” is incredible in terms of education, and yet so fundamentally basic. Why haven’t we thought of this before? Where did we get lost in the mundane tasks of educating? I love this concept. I actually love the whole idea of evaluating myself as a teacher in the process of evaluating my students.  Where would I get if I just give feedback to my students without closing the loop? Their mistakes are my mistakes. 

This guy’s got it right. Although, he teaches middle school math, his whole process is what I wish to emulate. First, having the DRIVE and the PASSION to change the world (by teaching the younger generations).  Second, understanding the idea that teaching isn’t a one-way type of thing. It’s this crazy back and forth and back again of learning from each other. 

Being able to “feed forward” means to be flexible and humble; Level out with the students. Step away from the podium and engage.  Use their mistakes and opportunities to learn and use their mistakes as opportunities for THEM to learn.

I like Joe Hirsch’s concept of Description not Prescription, found here. Instead of the prescribed method correcting the wrong and moving on, we should be figuring out what we did wrong, how to fix it and how we’ve grown from it.

Basically, it’s about giving up the perception of Teacher Says, Students Do and joining their circle. As an educator, I bring the experience and opportunity and students bring everything else. I mean, they ARE the reason we teach, aren’t they!?

Explore the basics of assessment here. This webpage couldn't be more simple. It's bookmarkable. (ya like that?) Something I'd definitely reference in the future.

Technology & Teamwork

If any field should adapt an interdisciplinary approach to education, it’s nursing. Hands down. Not only because nurses already wear the hats of so many other likened professionals, but because it’s obviously essential to ultimately improving patient outcomes.

The field of nursing has changes drastically over the past decades and currently continues to follow the trends of advancing technology, political involvement and patient advocacy (Turale, 2011). I believe nursing is becoming an individual medical entity that is independent from, but equal to physicians in that each profession has specific characteristics that cannot be done by the other, but that cannot be done WITHOUT the other. IOM (2010) recommends allowing nurses to lead and manage collaborations between physicians and other disciplines, strengthening the argument of nurses having abilities to do more than just bedside tasks.

We are quick to departmentalize education as a way to keep things specialized. Nursing is nursing and pharmacology is pharmacology, right? Sure, but can we nurse with out a pharmacist, I bet not.

This being said, we can see where having a specialty in nursing is essential, but because of nurse collaboration with and management of other disciplines, nurses should have an understanding of these other disciplines.

So what role does technology play in interdisciplinary education? Well, for one, it’s essential to incorporate a technology discipline to the interdisciplinary team in the workplace.  Whether it’s an IT specialist, or EMR coordinator, technology is basically the glue that holds the whole health system together. From an education standpoint, technology plays a role in the form of simulations, grades and student dashboards, library cataloguing systems and tons of others. Nurse educators need to embrace these technology disciplines and work to educate students on this necessity as well.

Check out more on Interdisciplinary Studies!

How Technology works for a team

Institute of Medicine. (2010). The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health. Retrieved from http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12956&page=R1

Turale, S. (2011). Preparing nurses for the 21st century: Reflecting on nursing shortages and other challenges in practice and education. Nursing & Health Sciences, 13(3), 229-231 3p. doi:10.1111/j.1442-2018.2011.00638.x

Active Learning

We all know how it feels to begrudgingly sit through an uninteresting, plain lecture perhaps with a generic Powerpoint presentation containing upwards of 100 slides of words. It’s boring, and exhausting. And I don’t think I’ve ever really taken away a true understanding of the material when learning is facilitated this way.

Enter Active Learning.

Here’s where the real learning takes place.

The doing.

The moving.

The making.

The being.

Just as the name implies this strategy engages students through technology and components that connect the real world to the classroom. It is through these experiences I believe that students can build on skills that perpetuate lifelong learning. As Bonnel & Smith (2010) put it, active learning is learning how to learn.

The glue that ties this theory together is technology. This allows students to engage and be active in the facilitation of course content. We can appeal to multiple learning styles using technology, too. Which just sweetens the pot.

Benefits of and Barriers to Active Learning 

As an educator, I will take risks and maybe incorporate off the wall or outrageous experiences to make learning memorable and exciting. I mean, why NOT? As I’ve reflected in past courses, I aim to be the educator that uses humor and understanding to build connections with students. I will keep the classroom up to date and relevant. I believe that active learning encompasses both authentic and experiential learning and assists with subsequent applied learning. In other words, engaging students in active learning so they can easily relate to clinical practice.

Again, as I have once reflected, I view educating as being similar to raising a child. For a more specific example, I would utilize technology and active learning to evaluate student learning and several points of a lecture/presentation with the use of clickers. After a number of slides, a question is posed to the class who must participate using the clicker and then a short debriefing will occur.  Just as I would start out teaching my child ABC before DEFG. I’d make sure he got the hang of the first three letters before I moved on to the rest. And every few letter I will re evaluate how he is learning. 

This picture says it all. Why would one want to be passive about anything?  You get out what you put in, and so as a student or an educator we should strive to active!

“Go big or go home.” 

Learn about the implementation of TEAL

 

Becoming an Educator in the 21st Century

As the educator, the responsibility lies with me to ensure that my students receive the optimal education possible. Of course, students are obligated to show and do the work, but I feel that unless I give them the tools, they can’t fully succeed. Just as we expect a chef to create a meal with fresh and delicious ingredients with their knowledge of cooking or baking, and new innovations they may have picked up along the way, we should hold educators accountable for delivering education in a manner that creates the best end product possible!

I have learned a lot recently about blended learning and the success of blended learning techniques in the classroom. While this model applies very well to a k-12 curriculum and student demographic, it can easily be applied to higher education. The idea is to not only bring technology into the classroom, but to directly facilitate learning with the use of technology.

Learn more about Blended Learning here!

Blended Learning in Higher Education

At this point, technology should be synonymous with education. In our personal time removed from institutional learning, we have access to the WORLD via our electronic devices. We connect everyday to people and view information from around the world. Why shouldn't this be the same in the classroom. Jessie Woolley-Wilson presented a Ted Talk on the Blended Learning model and highlighted the point that every student should have access to education and classrooms that optimize a students ability to learn. Ms. Woolley- Wilson says that this methods will seek out those students who are uninspired and overlooked and give them opportunities that best suit the newer generations of students.

In my classroom, I hope to emulate a blended learning model and ensure that my students have access to technology not only to receive course content, but in a facet that actually engages and facilitates learning. As a 21st century educator it should be an expectation of us to provide education that reflects our culture.