Communication Skills
Attendant upon my transition into the role of Mental Health Staff Nurse, I have devised the following reflective model-to-action plan for the formulation of workable communication skills. Realizing that "…all healthcare professionals require a reasonable level of numeracy for the safe administration of medicines and fluids, budgeting, and the interpretation of statistics,"
(http://learntech.uwe.ac.uk/numeracy 2011), I determined to include practical strategems for assessing ratios and SI units. Realizing also that contemporary education in most disciplines is reorganizing approaches to learning in the light of learning styles and the new paradigm shift which focuses upon the teacher as facilitator and the students as self-directed learners, I began to review various modes of facilitation as well as ways to evaluate student involvement and leadership. The foregoing necessitated a revolutionary change in my personal understanding of communication skills and my selection of the best rudimentary skills to which I might lay claim as a base for the fine tuning of communication skills to fit the needs of today's healthcare professionals. Such rumination provided me with the following plan.
Assessment of Personal Rudimentary Skills
Culling feedback from both former teachers, supervisors, and friends, I gave myself permission to include the following rudimentary skills:
Ability to listen well
A non-confrontational attitude
Better than average technological skills
A willingness to try new approaches
Basic intuitive skills
Very basic verbal and written communication skills
Communication Skills 2
I interpreted the first four rudimentary skills as positive input toward my plan for heightened communication; I viewed the last two as negative, rudimentary skills much in need of improvement. My plan of attack to remedy the situation was to investigate ways by which I might improve those intuitive skills as well as the verbal and written communication skills. A strong will to achieve, inbred in my nature, inspired me to take action through an ultimatum: one cannot give to others what one does not possess himself. This was a wake-up call, and my personal awe at becoming a part of the healthcare profession encouraged me through a recurring mind chant which repeated the Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm. Research has reminded me that the actual oath ran something like this:
I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment and I will do no harm or injustice to them (Hippocrates, 2010).
Steps in the Process
Since reflection, to me, has always precluded quiet, I vowed to begin each day with some reflective time in a quiet place. The old treehouse in our backyard was still an option for these aging legs so I made that my quiet place. Each morning began with the discipline of sitting up there among the trees and the quiet sky, cross-legged in the center of my exercise mat, giving my inner self up to that mantra: do no harm…with all it implied for my future. Boyd and Fales Framework for Reflection reminds the student of human nature that "[This] process of creating and clarifying the meanings of experience in terms of self, in relation to both self and the world…[changes] conceptual perspective" (Lifelong Learning Project, 1983).
Communication Skills 3
I figured that this practice would also increase my intuitive reading into the announced and unannounced needs of my students. "The process of creating and clarifying the meanings of experiences in terms of self in relation to both self and world [produces] an outcome which changes conceptual perceptions" (Boyd & Fales, 1983, p. 101). The very act of clarifying my own experiences and focusing upon them during quiet time was not only clearing my brain, but also opening up new areas of perceiving the experiences of others.
Practice was the medium for developing a new theory. According to Jane Conway and Penny Little of the University of Newcastle, Australia, this is actually the way it works. They believe that it is important to acknowledge the experience base of the learner as valid. Problem-based learning has been described as both an instructional strategy and a curriculum design (Conway & Little, 2000 University of Newcastle website).
In embracing their philosophy, I had to define "problem-based learning." And, according to H.S. Burrows, this increasingly popular term 'problem-based learning' does not necessarily refer to any specific educational method but can have different meaning, depending on the design of the educational method employed and the skill of the teacher (1986, p. 483). In a further examination of the method, I found that Shumway, Vargas, and Heller, in their study of problem-solving abilities, discovered that the "trail-following" approach had been most commonly used to study the...
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