Essay Sample: Reflection of an Adult Teaching Plan

Introduction

Creating a teaching plan is a very imperative step in adult teaching plan in nursing. It is a vital tool for achieving the best quality of patient care. Every nurse should educate their patient everything they need to know about their illness; this includes self-care, medication regimes, proper feeding program, and treatment. Through teaching, nurses help patients develop effective health behaviors, establish healthy living styles and basic education on when to seek medical help. Without this knowledge, people would not be able to maintain and promote their own health CITATION Bet14 \l 1033 (Ackley & Ladwig, 2014).Once a nurse develops a teaching plan, it is their responsibility to make sure that the patient understands it as well as establish a framework for assessment to ascertain if it is followed.

The positive experience of developing a teaching plan had a tremendous impact on my perception of working as a healthcare practitioner. I gained significant insight during the developing of the adult teaching plan as well as presenting the same to a patient with deep vein thrombosis (DVT), to motivate the patient to self-administer a Clexane injection.

Purpose and Scope of the PaperLearning experiences are an important part of the education process. This paper will identify, and reflect on the learning experiences while developing and presenting the adult teaching plan. As described by Donald Schon (1987), a reflection involves looking at and thinking about ones actions, experiences, feelings and responses and analyzing or interpreting them in order to learn from them. Donald distinguished between reflection in action and reflection on action. He described reflection in action as reflecting on action or an experience while it can still be beneficial to the situation rather than reflecting on how it could have been done differently. On the other hand, he described reflection on action as reflecting on how practice can be changed or developed after an event. Essentially it involves reflection after an event on how knowledge of previous similar events may have led to the unexpected incident and what is needed to change for the futureCITATION Don87 \l 1033 (Schon, 1987).

This paper uses both reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. It is structured in eight parts, the first part is the introduction, and the second part describes the scope and the purpose of the paper. The original teaching plan is reintroducing an overview of the same. The paper then reflects on the experiences in developing and presenting the teaching plan, reflects on teaching plans presentations. The final part of the paper is an overall reflection.

Re-introduction of the Original Teaching PlanThe original teaching plan was a detailed plan that established strategies that an educator can use or apply in the process of teaching patient with Deep Vein Thrombosis. It was aimed at motivating the patient to self-administer a Clexane injection. The plan envisaged some crucial details that focus on offering better services to the patient such as the provision of enabling environment, supportive process as well as one that fosters rapport through mutual respect. The plan was developed not to infringe on the patients rights. It emphasizes the importance of respecting human rights and safeguarding patient demands through critical reflection. However, its implementation was a challenge as there was getting the client good space for learning due to the limited space at the hospital.

Overview of the Original Teaching Plan The main objective of the original teaching plan is educating a patient with a DVT on how to administer the injection without fear. The teaching plan was composed of eight parts. The introduction, the learning needs evidence, learning context, learning aims, learner type, objectives, and outcomes. Further, the teaching plan describes the teaching theories and the strategies used to achieve the primary objective. At the end, the teaching plan illustrated the anticipated strengths and limitations. The lesson plan gave a detailed approach of the activities and learning type that was applied in that course. As such, a comprehensive strategy where the patient was to be engaged at his resting point was used. It was made success by asking the learner open-ended questions and giving room for clarifications.

Reflection on the Experience in Developing the Teaching PlanAt first, I was scared of the whole process since I was not sure of what to do to develop a substantial plan. However, after trying it severally, I discovered that developing a good adult teaching plan can make all the difference for a lesson that goes well or one that fizzes. According to Bastable (2014), a good teaching plan provides a solid foundation from which one can base the learning foundation for the patient. The teaching plan also serves as communication, tool and increases the chances of success of the overall plan CITATION Rei09 \l 1033 (Reitmeler & Vrchota, 2009). In developing my teaching plan, I began by defining the learner. I then determined their specific learning needs. This part involved collecting pertinent information about DVT patients. Since the teaching plan proposal was more problematic centered rather than subject-centered, and the patient in consideration is an adult, I made the following assumption from andragogy learning theory. That the patient is independent, self-directed in seeking information, goal oriented and would benefit from their effort. The final assumption is that the patient understands relationship quickly.

To emphasize, after identifying the type of learner in this regard, I conducted an assessment of the learning needs of such a patient. This was made successful through asking questions that sought to know of how they were fairing with the illness and whether they had any questions regarding the disease. I gained insight on this aspect, which a patient should at least have a basic understanding of DVT to prevent any adverse outcome. I then anticipated the learning outcome and the duration of the teaching plan. In this case, the aim of the teaching was to enable a patient to safely self-administer a Clexane injection without fear. At the end of the lesson, the patient would be able to manage self-administration of the injection of Clexane independently

I used the andragogy leaning theory since it presumes that adults have specific learning requirements. The andragogy learning theory assumptions and principles can be applied in teaching to offer the adult learner a wide range of benefits which include increased knowledge retention and comprehension of important concepts CITATION Joh16 \l 1033 (O'Donnell & Nacul, 2016).

Reflection on the Experience Presenting the Teaching PlanThe presentation of the teaching plan was my first proper presentation in a long time. I didnt have enough practice in the last few years, and therefore I had to do a lot preparing for it. It is amazing how one can learn from the exercise. In the beginning, I did not know the amount of work that would be needed to make the presentation perfect. I though in just a few minutes I would look over it and be ready to present. However, I realized that would not be realistic; I took hours to decide what would go in the slide. Then I looked over and considered the things I would say during the slide. I spent a lot of time researching about the disease.

In relation to the overall presentation, I feel that I included all the relevant information in relation to preparing a teaching plan. I think. I had a good introduction, a clear structure and a good explanation of my teaching plan. However, I found it difficult to include pictures relating to my topic. I realized I need to use pictures in the future to make my content more interesting and appeal to the visual learners. Reflecting on the presentation, I think I could have focused on using a participatory approach where the audience would have asked me more questions and concerns. One of my peers used the Prezi software, and I liked the breadth and its scope. I will continue to develop my presentation skills by volunteering to do more presentations. I hope by doing so I will have enough experience confidence in future presentations.

Reflection of Viewing Other Teaching Plan PresentationWatching other students present their teaching plan was a good experience; some of the students presentation was quite informative. However, some students could have done a better job by offering more in-depth information. Some were uncomfortable speaking in front of the audience. Others had useful information and detailed presentation materials. I tend to believe a comprehensive presentation is one that looks into all the facets of the subject matter and gathers all the details. These details can be inclusive of but not limited to graphic images, texts, statistical data, information from existing literature. Moreover, the manner in which the information is present is more important than the information itself. In my opinion, other students made redundancy errors that detracted them from their presentation. The Whole experience made me realize the importance of keeping the audience engaged. Bringing up information that is not relevant to the topic at hand is more likely to make the audience lose their interest. Furthermore, the pace of the presentation also matters. There were some instances where some students spoke too quickly during their presentation, and as a result, they would forget what they were about to say.

Overall ReflectionsThe twenty minutes session allows the patient to absorb the information being taught and ask questions. The learning needs are focused on the patients with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) being able to self-administer a Clexane injection preventing the complications of the disease. However, the patient should also be educated on the disease processes associated with DVT and the factors that are associated with the process. Furthermore, the Patient should acquire knowledge on how to manage DVT and the warning signs. DTV patients should also be advised to contact their doctor whenever they are unsure of what to do or when they have concerns regarding the disease. Finally, the evaluation criteria of a teaching plan should include a tool that allows the patients to complete the learning process anonymously. This was a fulfilling experience to me as it deepened my understand of adult teaching plan and widened my scope of thinking in helping learners to relate and ask questions.

References

Ackley, B. J., & Ladwig, G. B. (2014). Nursing Diagnosis Handbook : an Evidence-based Guide to Planning Care. Maryland Heights, Missouri: Mosby Elsevier.

Bastable, S. B. (2014). Nurse as educator : principles of teaching and learning for nursing practice. Burlington: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

O'Donnell, J. M., & Nacul, F. E. (2016). Surgical intensive care medicine. Cham: Springer.

Reitmeler, C., & Vrchota, D. (2009). Self-Assessment of Oral Communication Presentations in Food Science and Nutrition. Journa...