An assignment for PIDP 3100 is to interview an assigned classmate. I was unable to connect with my assigned classmate and so interviewed a friend about teaching adults about firearm safety and the work involved in this type of education. The key component used in this type of learning follows several principals – pre-reading, discussion, videos, practice without loaded firearms, feedback, practice with loaded firearms, feedback and more classroom work prior to an open book test and a practical test. This form of learning is quite similar to nursing as we assign pre-reading of textbooks, have discussion and videos, practice with simulated patients, provide feedback, practice with actual patients, provide feedback – over and over.

I was surprised when I paused to consider – there is more in common with nursing education and a sport education that I had previously considered.

I found this video great for helping people simply understand learning. The following are statistics from the video:

We only remember:

10% of what we learn

20% of what we hear

30% of what we see

50% of what we see and hear

70% of what we discuss

80% of what we experience

Helpful hints for helping others become engaged and remember what they have been taught.

My work recently made some beautiful videos of each of the Provincial and Regional Leaders. I hope you enjoy this small preview into something that brings me happiness and joy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz0Lv8WO2Sc

Like all group assignments, sometimes you cannot connect with an assigned partner and this makes it difficult to complete an assignment. As I was unable to connect with my assigned partner, I contacted my Instructor who directed me to make a post on any topic in adult education instead. As I have not yet posted on “Feminist Pedagogy”, and its impact on Nursing education, I thought this would be a great topic.

Nursing has historically been a mainly female based occupation. In the last few years there are increasing numbers of male and non gender specific people becoming registered as nurses. The Canadian Nurses Association website, notes a 32% increase in male nurses from 2017 – 2018 (https://www.cna-aiic.ca/en/nursing-practice/the-practice-of-nursing/health-human-resources/nursing-statistics). While CIHI references a 5 year increase in male nurses of 17% compared to slightly more than 5% of female nurses in this same timeframe (https://www.cihi.ca/en/nursing-in-canada-2018)

Feminist pedagogy focuses on bringing attention to inequity in several areas such as politics, economics and society. It doesn’t so much focus on the individual person, but on the whole. Nursing education does follow these principals in general – students are frequently encouraged to consider ways to aid in bettering the lives of their patients and contemplate the social determinants of health, however generally this is for women and marginalized groups. It would be interesting to consider how flipping this conversation and placing a focus on men’s health and how in this field they are often the marginalized group could be.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0020748906000605

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are an evolving system where large numbers (can be unlimited) of students can enrol in a free course.  For adult education in general (lifelong learning), this is an amazing trend and opportunity for academic (and non academic) learning without commitment or fear.  There are many positives in this for academia – students can be directed to short MOOCs for homework or background information, additional support for challenging topics and increased understanding of a topic with decreased focus for the instructor.  This could allow more opportunity for implementation of the flipped classroom model (not discussed in this blog, but look for a future one!).  To best prepare for this trend, educators like myself would benefit from signing up and trying a few of these courses on the topic they teach. I recently was directed to a MOOC on geriatric pharmacology as there are new best practices in the field.  I was initially apprehensive but found it to be exceptional in its content, presentation and applicability.  

In preparing for this blog, I reviewed the following article:

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/8/the-adult-learner-and-moocs

The article outlines the history of MOOCS, and specifically focuses on the benefits in some educational programs (in this case Computer Programming) of directing students to take introductory MOOCs before commencing their program.  They found there was a higher percentage of success for students who carried on in the program – so much so, they began offering a small credit to students upon completion of the MOOC.  Additionally, according to the article, adult learners seem to be more successful in this type of learning because it can be self paced with no demands for assignments, making it attractive to adult learners who are working with full time commitments.  The article goes on to describe some options for assigning credit for MOOCs but stresses how degrees could be obtained for decreased cost if this model was followed. Overall – an informative, positive article.

Blog Post #2 – Trends in Adult Education

Portfolio based assessment (PBA) is a system that has students not just graded on tests, quizzes and formalized scoring systems, but also adds in a compilation of a students work over time.  This will show the growth of a student from start of a course to finish.  It works not just year to year or grade to grade, but can aid in evaluating an entire scholastic journey.  The movement to PBAs is also beneficial for students with high test anxiety.  There is significant research and studies showing formalized tests may not be the best measure of competency for students – especially for measuring comprehension.  Many students experience test anxiety and/or many students simply memorize facts and do not understand the information – they learn to write a test not to understand.  I feel PBAs are a positive, more inclusive move in education and hope more opportunities occur for all students.

https://ashleytipton.weebly.com/portfolio-based-assessment.html

https://www.facebook.com/VCCSchoolOfInstructorEducation/

Primary Care… the words that bring hope to some, anxiety and fear to others. The issue is as complex as the seemingly simple name. In Northern Health Authority, Primary Care was implemented in all communities in 2016/2017 (https://www.northernhealth.ca/about-us/accountability/reports/annual-reports/2016-2017-annual-report). The concept of Primary Care, based on a 2014 framework by the Ministry of Health (https://www.health.gov.bc.ca/library/publications/year/2015/primary-and-community-care-policy-paper.pdf) is great on the surface – simply put, the idea is that as a primary care nurse when you go to see a person in their home (community programs) to provide nursing care, you could also provide other care such as a mental health assessment, wound care, case management assessment, immunization update etc, which would reduce the need for multiple visits and the chance of things to fall through the cracks.

The theory behind Primary Care was implemented and nursing schools across the North (Coast Mountain College, UNBC) have increased the focus on community based education in response. This has been accomplished by increasing the length of time in community based clinical rotations, additional class time spent on community based education, and involvement with students orientating to the multiple community based computer software programs – Procure, RAI, PIXIS etc. Many of the education modules for community program cross training (process of a nurse who has significant experience in one program achieving education and training to work in a similar but different program – ie/ Public Health Nurse being cross trained to Home Care Nursing) are online modules and self directed learning. This form of learning is being found in more and more nursing schools and can be demonstrated through a google search for online nursing courses.

The trend to increasing online education and having fewer in person classes is allowing more students to receive education, but may be affording fewer opportunities for less tech savvy individuals and increased feelings of isolation. It is an overall interesting change that I hope will become increasingly positive.

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.