Facilitating Teaching and Assessment Facilitating, Teaching and Assessment

Facilitating, teaching and assessment in practice

The facilitation, teaching and assessment of nurses are important and critical jobs. Hospitals understand that it is cost effective for them to have a senior employee mentor the junior employees so that they are soon trained enough to be on their own at work. Mentors are employees that have supervisory as well as leadership qualities to teach and facilitate learners. The nurse mentor carries on the job by assessing and evaluating the methods that can be used to facilitate the nurse. These methods may include but are not limited to lectures and discussion. The processes of facilitation and teaching depends on the capacity of both the mentor as well as the learner. The following discussion will focus on mentor and learner backgrounds, learning needs of the learner and the responsibilities of both parties. It also offers suggestions on how to improve learning and facilitation by adopting some basic activities at practice. There is often a discussion that the organizations cannot ignore the importance of ongoing help and guidance. Once the formal mentoring is over, the learner still needs occasional support that should be ensured at the mentor's as well as ward administration's end.

Mentor Bio data

I am a nurse registered with the state. My educational background in nursing is that I graduated in 2007 with a diploma in nursing. After my graduation, I got employed by the General Hospital in Sabah. At work, I have gained experience in different types of settings and wards and over 6 years of my working experience. I have been a part of different wards and my current duties are in neonatal intensive care unit. I do not only have to look after patients and offer them health care services but there are some medical staff members that I have to mentor too. The learners are of both genders but currently I am responsible to guide Rebecca so that she understands the working schedule of the hospital and the ward.

Learner Bio data

The learner is a fresh nurse diploma graduate in 2013 and she is hired by the hospital as trainee nurse. Furesco worked for two months in neonatal intensive care unit before she started working with me as a learner. The premature newborn babies do not only have vulnerability towards diseases but Furesco and I are responsible to ensure their security and safety from strangers as well. She is a quick learner and is sensitive towards her work as well as responsibilities. She does not hesitate to take extra shifts in order to complete her duty.

Physical Environment

The physical environment of the neonatal intensive care ward is totally hygienic. The ward is built on the health care quality standards since it is not possible to operate neonatal ward without supportive environment and mentally and emotionally supportive staff (Lester and Tronick, 2004). There are 10 official beds that are permanently installed. Also there are 18 pseudo beds that can be used on demand. The ward is fully air-conditioned. The maintenance of air conditions is carried out regularly. The ward staff is provided with desktop computers that are connected to the internet so that the information can be sent and received.

Identifying Learning Needs

The learner at medical care has learning needs that are different from the learning needs of people elsewhere. The learner needs to show some basic aptitude towards learning as well. This section elaborates the terminologies related to the needs of learner and the description of the learning environment.

Learning: The learning is considered as a process and not a product (University of Pittsburg, 2010). Learning is a positive change in knowledge that requires time and effort. Also learning is dependent more on the willingness of the learner than the willingness of the teacher or mentor.

Orientation: Effective learning is possible only when the learner is offered a secure environment where she can understand and take knowledge of the information that is offered to her (Brown, 2005). Such a setting should not pose any threats and should enable learner to perform regular duties as well as learn new things.

Pre-competency test: Not everyone can be selected as a paid learner in the organization. There are only a few seats for learners and the candidate needs to display a set of skills and knowledge that ensures that the candidate will serve the hospital in the best manner. The pre-competency test ensures that the candidate has basic qualities like knowledge of English, communication styles, understanding...

To perform the job. Learning cannot always be completely measured (Smith and Blake, 2005) yet pre-competency tests offer an idea about the cognitive level of the learner.
Learning theory: People learn through different ways and methods but in the medical arena, cognitive learning is considered best. The learner is asked to understand the situation and to learn different responses in the light of knowledge of the patient condition. Cognition needs that the memory of the candidate should be good and the candidate should retain what he/she learnt.

Learning style: Learning can adopt many styles some of which are formal and others informal. The Honey and Mumford's classification learning style is based on offering and learning opportunities as demanded by the learners. This learning style acknowledges that people may choose different methods of learning based on circumstances, level of experience and mode of learning (Honey and Mumford's Learning, 2011). The learner using Honey and Mumford's style would not necessarily require an experience and will be able to draw conclusions.

Learning Strategy: Learning is a full-fledged process that has a long-term goal of knowledge growth which can be achieved by only adopting a strong strategy. The strategy I adopt with my learner is that I ask her to self-prepare for the situation first. I often recommend her some learning material that reflects how to respond in different situations. Medical setting requires decision making thus the learner should have leadership qualities so that she can display best traits that require handling newborn patient care situations. I supervise Furesco to ensure that she understands situations and making right decisions. There are not too many members in the ward yet the peer support from fellows in ensured so that the employees that have been a part of organization since some time help Furesco understand how things are done in the system. They offer her partnership and review her performance so that she learns quickly. She is offered one to one monitoring that assists her in finding and correcting errors in run time. Often there is a need that some piece of knowledge should be shared with the learner so that she can cover her weaknesses and to explore what else she can do in a best possible manner. Thus, I counsel her. My teaching plan is such that twice a week I offer her 45 minutes lecture based on techniques of neonatal care and discussing with her case studies related to the ward and the industry. The learning method is carried out with an aim that learner will be able to follow a professional approach to patient care (McKimm and Jollie, 2003).

Facilitating And Assessment

The idea of bossy teaching methodology is over. It is no more effective nor was it ever. The mentors today understand that they do not have decades of knowledge gained through extensive travelling. Everyone has access to almost all types of knowledge today thus the style of learning and teaching is more facilitating than supervising.

Discussions: Discussion is one of most facilitative form of teaching. It allows me to understand the point-of-views of Furesco over different issues. During discussion on health care and neonatal intensive care methodologies, I understand what the ethical, professional, and practical views of Furesco are on different health care issues that the ward can face. Discussions also facilitate her to share her understanding as well as her confusions. In this way, she can seek clarity on topics that remained unclear during the lectures.

Questionnaires: The questionnaires allow the responder to think over the topic and questions for a while and offer a well thought over each answer. I had the learner fill questionnaire before she formally started learning with me. I asked her about her professional goals and the plans she has for her job tasks. This gave information about her dedication and thirst for learning. I also asked some questions that let me know about her knowledge since it is useful to know what the learner already knows (Threadgill, 1979). I have a plan to ask her to fill questioners after every few months to assess her knowledge and to seek her feedback.

Procedure: The learning procedure we adopt at the general hospital neonatal intensive care ward is that I supervise the learner and offer her lectures twice a week. I also offer her discussion opportunities at different times so that she can understand and share her queries with me. Our learning procedure also includes discussing past cases in the nursery involved in different learning activities including watching videos in the ward. I will also guide Furesco…