Critical Analysis of Teaching Skills in Practice Essay

Critical Analysis of Teaching Skills in Practice - Essay Example In line with this, this paper will seek to discuss the factors that promote the development of a high-quality learning environment in the clinical setting, analyze my thoughts and feelings related to this teaching session, evaluate own skills in facilitating others to learn, and incorporate theoretical and empirical literatures in my teaching. Factors Promoting High-Quality Learning Environment The clinical setting is the most important learning environment for undergraduate nursing students and as a clinical teacher, it is important to identify the different factors that promote a high quality learning environment and the different strategies towards effective teaching. Elliott (2002, p. 34) identified time spent in the clinical area, stress, quality of experience, guidance, environmental norms, and institutional support as the factors that may promote or impede the development of a high-quality learning. The quantity of time spent in the clinical setting is an important indicator o f learning direction (Elliott 2002, p. 34). The more time a student spent in the clinical setting, the greater is the amount and quality of learning a student could gain. For instance, I have taught two groups of nursing students in the clinical setting on two different shifts – one group is in 4-hour shift and the other group received 8 hours of clinical training. With these two groups, I have noticed a great improvement in clinical performance among groups who fall under the 8-hour shift. In addition, the time spent in the clinical setting also affects the quality of experience received in the clinical area such as what was observed on the 8-hour shift group. Stress in the environment is another factor that may enhance or impede the quality of learning due to presence of pervading anxiety, feelings of abandonment, incompetent perception of self, encountering reality shock, doubting nursing as a choice of career, and uplifting consequences (Elliott 2002, p. 35). One of my nu rsing students verbalized that aside from reality-shock, they also felt stress towards inability to verbalize their feelings, multi-tasking of psychomotor, affective, and cognitive skills to respond to individual needs, fear of committing errors and pressure on achieving perfect behavior in the clinical setting, and criticisms from other staff members. It is indeed that stress may promote or stimulate learning but it should be in moderate degree; stress beyond this point may impede the quality of learning (Elliot 2002, p. 35). Another factor that may promote high-quality learning environment is the amount of preceptorship or guidance received from clinical teachers or superiors. Preceptorship fosters development of nursing and facilitates effective learning by working on androgogical premise of one-to-one relationship (Elliott 2002, p. 36). Most of my students stated that they feel confident doing nursing care because of one-to-one interaction or teaching that I spent on them. Envir onmental norms are also factors that may promote or impede achievement of high-quality learning. This is because the clinical setting pressured every nursing student to achieve perfection. There is no room for errors as this may affect not only the students but the clinical teacher, hospital staff, and the institution as well. As a result, students may feel incompetent and unconfident. To promote high-qual