“It’s helped me be more reflective on the sessions I deliver and how I can improve, especially when I’m preparing my own teaching material.”
Toakase (TK) had seen some interesting teaching styles over the years, and as a learner she admitted some of training she had attended was not helpful. ‘I came away disinterested, not really understanding everything, or taking a while to grasp what they were teaching. I wanted to do things differently.
As a nurse, part of TK’s role is educating new students and colleagues. ‘When we have a study day we feedback or teach our colleagues what we learnt. On the ward, tailoring the session can be a bit of a challenge because staff vary from senior experienced nurses to new students.
I always find out from those attending what they want to know and teach according to that. But the course also helped me to think more about my delivery. It made me more aware of different teaching styles, and gave me an understanding of how we learn, and the way we do things. It’s helped me to focus on what I should be thinking about when I’m preparing my own teaching material. For me doing the course was about getting some theory in behind the teaching.
I make learning in my sessions practical, because I feel people learn better with this approach, especially in our job. For example, when I was teaching about bowel prep, I got everyone to taste the different types of bowel prep. So, that if a patient complains, they can understand what the patient is complaining about.
I’ve attended many Health and Safety sessions, and they can be quite boring. So, in a session I taught, I got everyone out onto the ward, and said, okay I want you to physically look for hazards, and I want you to isolate or respond to what you see. They found that interesting and fun.
Feedback is a big part of TK’s teaching sessions too. ‘There’s a feedback form that we sometimes use, but I also self-reflect on the sessions I deliver. Did I set the learning objectives? How did I find what they needed to learn? Or did I just go over topics, like a refresher? Did I meet what I set out to do? Did they learn anything?
Overall, I found it a great course. I really enjoyed it and I’ve been promoting it too. I’ve got a lawyer friend who also teaches and mentors, and she’s looking at doing the course as well.’