Below I am including my personal teaching philosophy. It is through the written philosophy below that I plan to shape my future clinical teaching. This acts as an important tool to guide me through the things that I value in teaching.
Critical events happen often in a hospital setting. There’s no certainty about when or what may have triggered a critical episode, but it is certain that one person will be there: a nurse. But really, it’s not enough simply to be a nurse, but rather to be a well prepared, careful and confident nurse. In order to create a well prepared nurse there must be ample teaching and learning. Clinical education is the foundation for nursing preparation. Unlike some majors, nursing requires far more than written work; when a patient in is a life threatening state, reading material will not suffice and initiate appropriate patient care. As a clinical instructor it is my goal, and privilege, to mold nursing students into well prepared nurses from a clinical standpoint.
Clinical teaching encompasses an important part of nursing that few other subjects include. There is a legacy to nursing. Not necessarily a personal legacy, but a legacy of learning. As nurses, we teach each other and pride ourselves on passing on the clinical knowledge of nursing. Countless times, in my experience as a nurse, I’ve had a more experienced nurse pass on his or her legacy of nursing to me. Often times the situation unfolds as such: “That’s a good way to do it, but can I show you a trick I’ve learned?” As the career of nursing happens in clinical actions, we rely on each other to teach and pass on learnings. Students, too, learn by these role modeling actions (Gaberson et al., 2015). Observation is a powerful learning tool and one that is prominent in nursing.
As a nursing instructor it is my goal to focus on learning defined by outcomes (Gaberson et al., 2015). In a clinical setting the outcomes are defined by competencies. In order to achieve these outcomes, there is great importance in considering the strengths of the students with whom I am working (Gaberson et al., 2015). An amazing thing about teaching is the interaction with students of various strengths and talents. It is through the consideration of these talents that goals can be met. There are four major topics on which I will center my nursing teaching: problem solving, critical thinking, clinical reasoning and decision making (Gaberson et al., 2015). By using these as the foundation for my teaching, the goals and outcomes will be determined based on a student’s ability to achieve these goals.
Through clinical teaching I seek to have my students learn (Svinicki & McKeachie, 2011). Learning is the outcome and focus in a clinical setting, and teaching simply acts as a mechanism to achieve learning. It is through the clinical teaching process with focus on outcomes that I plan to create well prepared nurses, who will leave their nursing legacy to future nursing generations.