Teaching and Learning (Nursing)

00:00 Welcome back, everyone.

00:02 Two of the most important things that we do as nurses, include teaching and learning.

00:07 The main reason for teaching and learning in nursing at all levels is to enhance the nurses contribution to assist the individuals, families, and communities in promoting and preserving health, well-being, and to efficiently respond to illnesses.

00:23 Now very similar to the nursing process, the teaching-learning has a process as well, which includes...

00:29 Which will sound very familiar to you.

00:31 To be able to assess the situation to diagnose, to develop, and then to implement.

00:40 And finally, to evaluate the teaching that you provide to your clients or to others.

00:46 Now there are different types of education in nursing.

00:48 First of all, or the one that most nurses engaged, and include patient education.

00:53 We also do mentoring both formally and informally.

00:56 And finally, all nurses are responsible for engaging in professional development or keeping their skills current and contemporary throughout their practice.

01:06 Patient education is one of the most important components of nurse engagement.

01:12 In regard to patient education, we all realize health care has increasingly asked patients to be more self-sufficient, expanding the need for precise directions from providers.

01:23 However, implementation of patient education is still lacking.

01:27 One of the primary goals of effective patient education is to decrease hospital readmission rates.

01:35 When you think about that, discharge planning should actually begin when the patients are admitted and continue through the course of stay with improved patient education before hospital discharge in order to achieve the goals of lower rehospitalizations.

01:49 So even though we understand that patient education is really important, there still exists problems with providing nurse education.

01:56 First, work overload.

01:58 A nurse has many responsibilities throughout their shift, and sometimes we feel it easier to marginalize patient education as we prioritize many other things throughout the day when it's actually the opposite.

02:10 We should actually prioritize patient education above most other things.

02:15 There also could exist a lack of communication techniques.

02:18 The nurse may not have the right techniques or know about them to be able to provide effective patient education.

02:24 Similarly, they may have insufficient communication skills.

02:28 And, also, there may just be a general lack of systemic support which means the way that the day is scheduled, the way the staffing patterns are, it just may not underlyingly support the way the nurses be able to go into the patient's room to provide the education because they simply do not have enough time .

02:45 Now there are some strategies to provide improved patient education.

02:49 First, be able to delegate responsibilities to your support staff and really focus your energies on patient education.

02:57 Be able to learn what the patient already knows and dispel that information.

03:01 You need to understand what the patient is coming in with.

03:04 We do understand in health literacy that patients have a variety of ways to learn things through the internet, through their friends, through magazines, all types of things.

03:14 So it's important that we try to find out exactly what they know and either dispel misinformation or compliment some of the right information that they may already have.

03:24 You also want to provide patient information in the simplest way possible using visual aids if you have them.

03:31 We know, as nurses, we have a higher level of education, but that's not always the case sometimes with our patients and we have to understand where they're coming from and meet them there, so that they're able to understand the education that we provide them.

03:44 You also want to ask patients and family members, really, to learn important medical information or steps to treatment, including signs that their condition may be worsening.

03:53 So not only do they need to know what to do to enhance their recovery at home, but they also need to know the warning signs when they're at home to be able to call for help if things are going worse.

04:04 You also want to question the patient's understanding of the care and its necessity.

04:08 So once you've provided the education, it's really important that you do the questioning technique to make sure that they do understand exactly what you shared with them and why it's important.

04:19 And finally, you do want to make sure that the patients understand the importance of all of their medications and how and why to refill them properly, so that they remain on their medication plan.

04:30 Now the next type of nurse education that we'd like to talk about is mentoring.

04:33 Now mentoring is a reciprocal and collaborative learning relationship between two, sometimes more individuals with mutual goals and shared accountability for the outcomes and success of the relationship.

04:45 Now mentoring is a really great way to strengthen the nursing workforce and actually in turn improve the quality of care and patient outcomes.

04:54 So when you think about the mentor and the skills needed there, the mentor actually helps the less experienced nurse mature and grow in the field.

05:03 And the mentor actually benefits from the satisfaction of actually helping a younger colleague.

05:09 And today even though we have seasoned nurses, they're learning just as much sometimes from the newer generation of nurses as they learn from the mentors.

05:17 Now to be an effective mentor, you do need to maintain your competence within your profession.

05:23 You do want to maintain an air of confidence as you are teaching.

05:27 Your mentee, rather.

05:29 You also want to be insightful.

05:30 You want to be able to provide not only some of the facts, but you want to teach them and show them some examples and stories along the way that you've learned throughout your career.

05:39 You do want to engage them with your critical thinking skills.

05:42 Well, it's not always just about remote knowledge acquisition, but it's how you put this knowledge into practice every day as a nurse.

05:49 And finally, as a as a competent mentor, you also want to be capable of providing high-quality care because you are teaching the less experienced nurse how to improve outcomes for your patients and for the organization.

06:03 Now mentoring can be both formal and informal.

06:06 By formal, that means you're actually assigned a mentee that someone that you're actually working with in a formal relationship, and maybe coaching them through the new orientation process or something like that.

06:17 And it can also be informal, meaning you're just working on the unit, and by the very virtue of how you work on the unit and showing your expertise, you may not be formally assigned to a mentee, but that does not mean that everyone on the unit may not be benefiting from your expertise in an informal way.

06:35 And for successful mentoring, it does require trust.

06:39 That means that the mentee is to trust you, and you are to trust the mentee to be able to ask questions, to come to you if they need anything throughout the process.

06:48 You also want to have the ability for assessment.

06:51 You need to assess the mentee, where they are, understanding what their skills are, where the gaps are, and how you can help take them to the next level.

06:59 And as they're learning these new skills, be continually assessing to see how they're growing within the profession.

07:05 By that, we also mean you need to evaluate their skills as well.

07:09 And by doing so, you need to be comfortable with constructive feedback.

07:13 That means having sometimes a critical conversation if something hasn't gone right or if you see opportunities for improvement.

07:19 Being able to vary in a caring way share that with them, so that they can grow from their experience, and not be diminished by it.

07:26 And finally, also serving as a positive role model.

07:30 Even when you're not in that formal situation or having the dialogue, having them just simply watch you on the unit in how you interact, not only in your professional expertise, but also with the way you engage with others, how you have interprofessional relationships.

07:44 All of these things in the soft skills are super important as well.

07:49 And the third type of nursing education that we'd like to talk about today is continuing education and professional development.

07:55 Now these aspects are fundamental components of being a professional nurse.

08:00 For professional development in regard to the new nurse.

08:03 Now these new nurses typically have very limited experience, so they might have difficulties in their first permanent nursing position.

08:10 But for the established nurses, professional development really helps them understand their professional responsibilities.

08:16 That's where they are now.

08:17 But they might also have questions about how to become a nurse leader and actually how to take the next step within their career.

08:25 So when you think about developing profession, nurses must maintain confidence, and they must also remain open to collaboration and evaluation in order to attain the best patient care.

08:37 And also in regard to professional development, it's really, really important to the nursing profession because it emphasizes the importance of several things: continuing education, assessing learning needs, and also upholding competency.

08:51 Now, conversely, poor education and a lack of sufficient knowledge can actually lead to mistakes that are costly for people's health, Improve knowledge is an essential tool for prevention of errors and providing higher quality care.

09:05 So what do we learn today? We've learned that both teaching and learning are critically important in the nursing profession.

09:12 Now, as nurses, we are responsible for ensuring our patients are able to care for themselves properly following discharge.

09:19 This is an important task, as recovery process, many times, continues at home.

09:25 Also, nurses can help each other learn through the mentoring process.

09:29 This many times is mutually beneficial for both the novice and the experienced nurse.

09:34 And finally, professional development helps keep nurses current in our practice and prepares us for advanced roles within the profession.

09:42 I hope you've enjoyed this module on teaching and learning.

09:45 Thanks so much for watching.