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Running head: LABORATORY LEARNING CENTERED LESSON PLAN

Introduction
This paper discusses the development and implementation of a learning-centered plan for
teaching assessment skills to nursing students in a laboratory environment. The skill was
assessment of the head, ears, nose, throat and mouth (HENTM) and the students were novice
accepted nursing students who had not yet started clinical rotations.
Texas Christian University places great value on a basic mastery of assessment skills and
the health assessment lab allows a safe environment where the students can practice assessment
skills prior to clinical rotations. In their standard program, students are accepted to the nursing
program prior to starting their freshman year. During their sophomore year, they start to take
some nursing courses including pathophysiology and health assessment. Health assessment is
taught in a lab environment utilizing simulation manikins and each other as tools to learn basic
physical assessment.
Topic, Length of Time, Format, and Number of Students
This graduate student (GS) joined the classroom and engaged with the professors and
students for 2-3 weeks before attempting to teach any portion. Guidance was offered by the
current professors and this GS was also able to glean appropriate teaching skills from observing
the current professors. This GS was also able to interact with the students which allowed better
assessment of their current physical exam abilities. This topic of HENTM assessment was
selected with the guidance of the current professors.

LABORATORY LEARNING CENTERED LESSON PLAN

Students require minimally safe assessment skills to interact with patients and this GS
was impressed with the universitys plan of teaching assessment skills prior to beginning clinical
rotations. During the initial lab session observed by this GS, one student had failed a previous
cardiovascular assessment performance review and was required to repeat it. During this
session, the GS noted the commitment of the faculty was to ensure safe practice. The student
had failed the previous assessment mainly because she had failed to verify the identity of the
patient.
The health assessment lab students meet one time a week officially though they are
permitted access to a practice lab should they desire. The weekly meeting is Wednesday from
2pm to 5pm until the week before Thanksgiving break. Labs are concluded at that time so
students may concentrate on other didactic courses that will have final exams. Grading for the
course is pass/fail. Attendance is tightly regulated and students would not pass the course if they
had 2 or more unexcused absences. There were 17 students in the health assessment lab class.
The assessment topic was allotted approximately 45 minutes 60 minutes for didactic
teaching activities to be followed by approximately one hour of time for the students to practice
the skills with the faculty available for guidance and coaching. This practice time allows the
students time to safely practice skills while learning to integrate psychomotor, affective and
cognitive knowledge (Stokes & Kost, 2012).
The GS employed a combined theoretical framework to approach this learning activity.
Students are relatively young with the average age of the students being approximately 19-20
years old. They are still adult students and as such, one framework utilized was the androgogical
learning theory. A couple of principles borrowed to help shape the learning environment for this

LABORATORY LEARNING CENTERED LESSON PLAN

activity was that, though these students were young, they bring their own experiences to the
environment (Knowles, Holton & Swanson, 2012). Some of these students had experienced
themselves and loved ones being in the healthcare system and being assessed physically. These
students added important richness to the laboratory environment.
Another theoretical framework was Banduras social learning theory. This theory
recognizes that individuals learn best by observing others behaviors (1977). The students had
access to online resources of expert nurses performing assessments and they could also observe
the manner that the educators in the lab would perform/demonstrate different assessment skills.
Learning Outcomes & Evaluation
Below is a chart listing the learning outcomes that were proposed for the educational
session on HENTM assessment. This GS used Fink to classify the various objectives and
outcomes. Finks taxonomies provide a thorough, inclusive method of covering all possible
learning outcomes needed to successfully achieve learning on any given topic (2013).

At the end of the 45-60 minute teaching session the nursing student will successfully
perform the following objectives:
Outcome Criteria

Method to Check for Learning

1. Recall basic anatomy and physiology


of HENTM.

1. Students turn in anatomical identification


sheet which is scored pass/fail.

2. Recognize normal and abnormal


characteristics of HENTM.

2. Students will verbalize abnormal findings


as discovered as they assess each other.

3. Describe assessment techniques for


HENTM.

3. Students verbalize assessment techniques


just prior to performing them on the volunteer
(usually another student).

LABORATORY LEARNING CENTERED LESSON PLAN

4. Demonstrate assessment techniques


for HENTM.

4. After practice and guidance, students will


successfully demonstrate assessment
techniques on their physical assessment
performance evaluation done on 11/18/15.

Teaching Strategies for a Learning Centered Environment


The strategies used to help create a learning centered environment involve, first of all,
recognizing another androgogical principle. That would be the assumption that adult learners
need to understand why the knowledge in an educational activity is important to them. The
students in this course had a previous understanding that knowledge of how to perform a
thorough and safe HENTM assessment would be needed to pass the course. The educational
activity presented by the GS also emphasized the importance of recognizing several abnormal
assessment findings as essential to help screen patients for health conditions.
The GS also utilized anecdotes of personal experiences with patients and their unique
assessment findings to engage the students and increase their interest with the possibility that
they might one day be able to catch interesting and unique assessment findings in their own
patients. This was use of the role-modeling theoretical framework. Students were quite engaged
by this technique and afterwards posed additional questions relating to unique assessment
findings.
Evaluation of Educational Activity Effectiveness
A post-educational evaluation was distributed to the students and returned by most (but
not all). Students were evaluated informally immediately following the educational session by

LABORATORY LEARNING CENTERED LESSON PLAN

splitting up into pairs and practicing assessment skills on each other. Their formal evaluation
was done approximately 2 weeks later with this graduate student participating in the performance
evaluation covering the entire head to toe physical assessment (including the material covered by
this GS). All 17 students passed the evaluation at that time.
Nine post-educational evaluations were returned. Greater than 95% of the likert-style
items were rated as excellent with a couple of good marks and one fair. The one fair
comment was regarding relating theory to practice. This GS admits that she had never given
consideration to integrating theory to assessment techniques but perhaps that is something that
requires further research and investigation.
Some of the other comments were short good job type comments. More detailed
comments follow below:

Student 1
Very good! Kept my attention.
Student 2
It was a very good presentation.
Student 3
Loved the pictures you incorporated into presentation.

LABORATORY LEARNING CENTERED LESSON PLAN

Student 4
I liked how you had lots of pictures that you discussed rather than just text on the screen.
Student 5
Very great I liked hearing about your experiences!
Student 6
Good job on explaining things and you gave good examples.
Conclusion
This has been a discussion of the planning and implementation of a learning-centered
educational intervention for novice nursing students learning HENTM assessment. The GS has
described the theoretical framework guiding the educational session, the actual educational
intervention and assessment of the students learning that followed. There was also discussion
and evaluation of the feedback received from the students on evaluation. This educational
intervention was successful due to adherence to androgogical and other learning-centered
principles.

References

LABORATORY LEARNING CENTERED LESSON PLAN

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Fink, L.D. (2013). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to
designing college courses. San Francisco: CA: Jossey-Bass.
Knowles, M., Holton, E., & Swanson, R. (2012). Theories of Teaching. In The adult learner:
The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development (7th Ed). New
York: Routledge.

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