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Adult Learning Strategies

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Adult learning can be difficult to address for faculty in nursing education. It has become increasingly important to develop greater clinical thinking and reasoning skills in nursing students. However, students are stretched thin with busy lifestyles and often do not learn effectively from traditional teaching techniques. Nursing educator faculty must be knowledgeable in the latest research on adult learning and effective teaching strategies to engage learners and provide an active learning environment. Strategies that can be utilized are case studies, concept mapping, journaling, utilizing a flipped classroom for self-directed learning, and clinical simulation. Exploring these different learning strategies and comparing the advantages …show more content…

A concept map will be the visual representation of how a student is thinking about the a patient case or scenario. Similarities to case studies are noted in that students are looking at all of the patient's medical aspects, but the student is not provided with the information like case studies, but must gather their own information. Students will need to observe for abnormalities while conducting a patient assessment and obtaining information through chart review. The student works through the nursing process and discovers the coordination of the multiple aspects of the patient's case. Individual components such as diagnostic tests, assessment findings, patient symptoms, physician orders, and nursing components are then displayed on a poster board to show the collaboration of each of these and how they are interrelated. The student will then identify priority nursing diagnosis, establish patient goals, and then outline nursing interventions with their rationales to show the entirety of the nursing …show more content…

Harrison and Gibbons (2013) interviewed students to gain their perspective on the effectiveness of concept mapping in nursing education and the results were positive for "motivated, open-minded students," (p. 395) . Issues arose in students that perceived concept mapping as difficult and enforced, often feeling as if instructors were "telling us we were going to learn another language" (Harrison & Gibbons, 2013, p. 397). Students would find themselves discouraged and not as open to using concept mapping as a positive and valuable learning tool. Harrison and Gibbons suggest instructors attend workshops and get practical feedback on utilizing concept mapping for more positive learning experiences for

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