The learning environment in regards to general nursing students - Essay Example

The Learning Environment in Regards to General Nursing Introduction Professional nursing is an art and applied science. It is essential tocreate high-achieving learning environments for nursing students, where the most advanced curriculum and instruction techniques combine to support learning. In a high-achieving learning environment, the professional nursing faculty need to engage students in utilizing their critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, effective communication skills, and also take initiatives to developing in the students the sensitivity to cultural diversity in delivering therapeutic care. Nursing practice is enhanced through inquiry, advocacy, and community involvement. Modern nursing is changing with new roles and working practices. They are leaders, coordinators, teachers and practitioners. There is still a need for nurses to care for patients in hospitals, but much nursing practice now takes place in the GP surgery, in peoples homes and in specialist clinics in the community. Role of qualified nurse in supporting nursing students Qualified nurses play a significant role in educating nursing students and other health professionals. They are the role models for the student nurses who have entered this profession keeping in view to excel in the nursing profession. Many of the qualified nurses feel mentoring very rewarding and most of them will be involved in teaching and supervising students on practice placements. Qualified nurses need to learn new skills and take more responsibilities and show the way to the students. The lecturer-practitioner role also allows qualified nurses to combine an interest in teaching with hands-on practice1. Laschinger (1992) used the Kolb’s learning theory (ELT) to study 179 generic baccalaureate students’ perception of the contributions of different types of nursing learning environments to development of adaptive competences. Nursing learning environments were thought to contribute most to divergent competencies, reflecting the importance of both people-oriented and scientific skills in nursing. However it was found that clinical experience and senior preceptorship experience contributed significantly more to the development of these competencies than typical nursing classes and non-nourishing classes. Besides, the students considered assimilative competencies such as leading and influencing others relatively unimportant to successful functioning in nursing learning environments. The preparation for the practice of professional nursing occurs in the early training program for nurses that integrates liberal arts and sciences, as well as nursing theory and practice. Besides this program need to develop altruistic values, an understanding of and appreciation for the social and ethical issues of life in a global society, the conceptualization and synthesis of general education and nursing knowledge and the development of affective, cognitive, and psychomotor skills and behaviors to function as a caring, beginning practitioner in nursing. Learning environment for student nurses Teaching and learning is a dynamic, collaborative, reciprocal life-long process of growth arising from interaction between teacher and the student. Teaching faculty is responsible for guiding learning activities, which create an environment that is conducive to learning and valuing of self as a basis for caring for others among the nursing students. In addition, they provide opportunities to practice skills, and offer positive reinforcement as motivation for learning. As a diverse group of scholars, both the teaching faculty and the students interact with the environment bringing a variety of orientation influenced by factors such as previous experience, lifestyles, and desires for achievement. Recognizing these differences it is essential to provide opportunities to validate prior learning. In this context it becomes essential that instructional strategies should be designed to respond to individual differences. As the nursing students actively participate in the teaching- learning process, they become more independent, self-directed, and creative in meeting their learning needs. Critical thinking and self-evaluation are integral elements in the teaching – learning process. The nursing program need to create a climate and learning experiences that will facilitate the development and synthesis of knowledge, skills, and values wherein graduates of the program will utilize critical thinking skills when applying knowledge from the biophysical and behavioral sciences, humanities and nursing, to the care of individuals, utilize therapeutic nursing interventions through the nursing process in providing health care with respect for the worth and dignity of persons at any point along the wellness-illness continuum throughout the life cycle, communicate professionally with colleagues and in particular patients, demonstrate leadership skills in collaboration with consumer and others in a variety of settings to effect change that promotes delivery of quality health care in a diverse multicultural society, evaluate research findings in nursing and other fields for their applicability to the improvement of nursing practice, participate in expanded roles to meet changing health care needs of society, assume responsibility for professional practice that reflects the standards of professional and regulatory bodies and assume responsibility for personal and professional growth through lifelong learning2. The mission of any nursing institute should be to provide educational experiences that empower the students to promote competence in the area of professional nursing, strengthen the capacity for employment in a variety of clinical practice settings within the healthcare community, and develop a sense of civic responsibility. Through high quality and creative instruction, the teaching faculty should strives to provide an environment that is conducive to learning, stimulates intellectual inquiry, and encourages personal and professional growth. The teaching faculty needs to be sensitive to the unique characteristics of the students as these relate to issues of access, retention and graduation. The faculty needs to strive to prepare graduates who will be able to function as compassionate, caring professionals in future. By providing a high quality educational program, faculty will prepare leaders to meet the changing and comprehensive health needs of the community. Both faculty and learners attempt to create and strengthen community linkages in order to develop collaborative research and service projects that will enhance the health status of the community. The clinical learning environment creates many opportunitics for student learning and the development of critical competencies in the nursing profession. The learning that takes place in this environment, however, confronts the first year nursing student with challenges that are absent from the classroom situation and causes the student to experience a significant amount of uncertainty and anxiety. A study revealed that the students experience uncertainty due to the lack of opportunities to develop competence in providing nursing care. The contributing factors towards this experience are: unavailability and inaccessibility of staff due to time constraints; shortage and/or absence of equipment to fulfill nursing duties and meet the needs of patients; conflict in the expectations of nursing school personnel and clinical nursing personnel in hospitals, as well as a lack of awareness among senior professionals of the needs and problems of first year nursing students in the clinical health care environment. Furthermore the students experienced the nature of the clinical learning programme as disrupting the continuity in patient care learning experiences, and the guidance and support by nursing personnel in the clinical learning environment as inadequate (Carlson S et.al., 1993). Nursing is a caring profession that provides services to society at any point along the wellness-illness continuum. Nursing is an interactive and deliberate process directed toward enabling individuals, families, and communities to achieve the highest level of wellness in a changing environment. The nursing process provides a framework for interaction among nurses, persons, and communities. Nurses provide services to clients in a variety of environments. Individuals, families, and communities in a diverse multi-cultural society are the consumers of these services. Stabilizing tendencies are responsible for maintaining the fluctuating internal and external environments within a range that is compatible with continuing existence. As health is a dynamic state that fluctuates along the health-illness continuum and throughout the life cycle, expressions of both stabilizing and actualizing tendencies is critical to the function of healthy persons, Self-determination, expressed through individual choice enables persons to maintain health and achieve increasingly higher levels of wellness. Human caring acknowledges the right to self-determination and choice inherent in the enduring values of human freedom and dignity that is both universal and individual. Viewing the concepts of wellness, health, and illness within the context of individual, family, and community systems enables nurses to interact in ways that maintain health and promote optimal levels of well-being. It is through their uniqueness that each individual, family, and community responds to changes in the internal and external environments in an attempt to maintain health and achieve higher levels of wellness. The training program and the education materials should enable nurses to assess their working environment, and develop professional and educational skills that enhance mentoring and assessment. It is essential to explore the concepts of mentorship and assessment in relation to clinical practice, examine the benefits of mentorship and assessment for retaining students and for professional development identifying opportunities to support and assess pre- and post-registration students and develop the leadership and managerial skills. Conclusion One of the most important ways in which this can be accompanied is by supporting nurses through setting professional standards and providing guidelines and advice. Today nurses practice in an environment of constant change. This involves new and expanding roles for health professionals, increasing technological advances in treatment and care, continuing reorganization and the redirection of resources. It is vital that you develop your professional knowledge and competence to cope with these demands and the complexities of modern professional practice3. In meeting changing societal needs and expectations, nurses must be flexible in responding to and initiating change. Nurses collaborate with other health care providers, consumers, and policy makers of health care. As leaders, nurses function as change agents, managers, decision makers, collaborators, and coordinators. As advocates, nurses also enter into the macro level of society as active change agents and participate in defining and structuring social reality for the continual improvement of the quality of life. Nurses strive to create a caring environment conducive to effective interaction between individuals and groups. They are capable of working with and through others to assist persons in achieving wellness. Today nurses are learning new skills and taking on more responsibility. There are more nurse-led specialist services and nurses are playing an active and independent role in the management of peoples health and well-being. Nurses need good communication and personal skills, ability and willingness to reflect upon and assess the effectiveness of their practice and to tailor their nursing care to the particular needs of individuals and their families. Above all, nurses must ensure their practice respects and safeguards the privacy, dignity and emotional well being of the individual. References Laschinger, HK 1992, Impact of nursing learning environments on adaptive competency development in baccalaureate nursing students, J Prof Nurs. Mar-April;8(2):105-14. Carlson S, Kotze WJ, van Rooyen D 2003, Accompaniment needs of first year nursing students in the clinical learning environment, Curationis. 2003 Aug;26(2):30-9. Read More