Table of Contents
Learning Theories and Diversity 4
Strategies for Conflict Management 7
Appropriate Teaching Strategies 10
Managing Barriers to Learning 11
Impacts of Strategies on Student Motivation 13
Evidence-Based Strategies and Best Practices 16
Evaluating Accomplishment of Outcomes 19
How Assessment Supports Cultural Competence 19
Overview of the Course
NURS FPX 6105 Assessment 4 Assessment Strategies and Complete Course Plan
As a clinical nurse educator, one of the roles to play is the provision of staff development education, oriented to motivating nurses in clinical settings, coaching and mentoring them, and teaching them the best ways to meet their career goals. A critical need for nurses who are transitioning from the higher education environment into clinical practice is the understanding of a work-life balance. As Matsuo et al. (2021) noted, a strong work-life balance is a necessity for the successful hiring and retention of a large nursing workforce. Without the balance, many nurses show a high intention to leave their clinical practice setting, which is a problem that many organizations face as nurse turnover diminishes their capacity to deliver care to patients (Matsuo et al., 2021). Thus, as new nurses venture into the clinical practice setting, they need training and mentorship on the approaches that would promote their work-life balance and prevent them from getting overwhelmed to the point of quitting their jobs.
Therefore, the work-life balance topic will be delivered at the clinic during the orientation of newly hired nurses to the facility. The objectives of the course will be (a) to provide support for the newly hired nurses as they get accustomed to life as clinicians, (b) to increase the rates of retention among the new nurses by supporting their work-life balance, and (c) to promote a supportive atmosphere for the new nurses. The work-life balance lessons will be delivered as part of the coaching and orientation program through well-designed training programs and on-the-job training. The target audience for the lessons is the new nurses that the organization hires to work in various units, including the intensive care unit (ICU), high-dependency unit (HDU), the emergency department (ED), and the general ward.
Learning Theories and Diversity
Learning theories form the foundation of the design of courses and specific topics in a manner that would be suitable for delivery to specific student populations. For a clinical nurse educator, the student population generally comprises adult learners who have obtained degrees or other nursing qualifications from recognized institutions and are transitioning into the clinical practice setting, or nurses who have been practicing but need to enhance their knowledge and skills in specific nursing practices. Consequently, in the design of courses to offer to this student population, the educator needs to select an appropriate learning theory to inform the design. In the present scenario, the educator selects the adult learning theory to impart knowledge on work-life balance to newly hired nurses at a clinical facility. This section discusses the course environment, the educational theory used and its justifications, the diversity of the learners with whom the educator will interact, and the strategies for managing conflict within the learning environment.
Educational Theory
The adult learning theory is selected as the basis for developing the course. The theory has five major orientations, namely the cognitivist, behaviorist, humanistic, social cognitive, and constructivist orientations (Allen et al., 2021). The cognitivist orientation is useful in delivering structured content to students in classroom settings with the purpose of developing their knowledge and skills to learn better. The behaviorist orientation, on the other hand, promotes change in behavior through coaching and deliberate practice in competency-building settings. The humanist orientation imparts lessons to meet affective and developmental needs and inspires students to be more self-actualized and self-aware. Social cognitive orientations are based on the role-model approach to learning through interactions and observations. The constructivist orientation, on the other hand, is aimed at making meaning through action learning and developmental assignments (Allen et al., 2021). Each of these orientations is useful in training adult learners in clinical settings, but for different areas of knowledge.
NURS FPX 6105 Assessment 4 Assessment Strategies and Complete Course Plan
The most applicable orientation of the theory for the proposed lessons on work-life balance is the social cognitive orientation. The social cognitive orientation of adult learning theory posits that learning occurs best when an individual interacts with others in a social context (Allen et al., 2021). The objective of learning based on this theory is to acquire and master new behaviors and roles, especially by interacting with individuals who are more experienced and knowledgeable on the topics of interest and receiving lessons from them through formal or informal programs. The process of acquiring knowledge, based on the approach, is based on the interactions of the learner with an authentic environment, with experience being an integral part of the learning process (Mukhalalati & Taylor, 2019). The approach is based on David Kolb’s cycle of learning.
Justification of Theory
The adult learning theory will be applicable to the delivery of content on the work-life balance in the clinical setting. The lessons will be delivered as part of the coaching and orientation program targeting new nurses, meaning that the nurse educator will act as both a trainer and a role model for the newly recruited clinicians. According to Allen et al. (2021), the model of delivering information through coaching and mentorship conforms to the social cognitive orientation of the adult learning theory. In the application of the orientation within an organizational environment, the role model is a formal mentor, a supervisor, or more experienced members of the organizational team within which the learner operates. The supervisors or teammates become supportive of the learner by offering a network that would help them to learn and grow (Allen et al., 2021). This perspective would work in the proposed delivery of the work-life balance topic by ensuring that the clinical nurse educator is the mentor and the more experienced nurses in the various units where the new recruits will work are the network of support they need to learn and grow.
Existing evidence points to the successful application of the adult learning theory in training adult learners in clinical settings. Curran (2014) reviewed existing literature on learner-centered teaching styles and found out that the application of adult learning theory promotes the engagement of learners, their learning outcomes, and the transferability of the lessons to diverse practice settings. Allen et al. (2021), from their review of leader development programs, argued that the professional training curricula adopted in medical education – as well as in the military – successfully apply the elements of the adult learning theory to impart knowledge and skills to the students. The evidence from their research supports the use of specific orientations of the theory in educating learners on specific topics. Mukhalalati and Taylor (2019) further provided support for the adoption of Kolb’s experiential learning cycle in providing health education.
Diversity of Learners
The major diversity issue in the clinical practice setting is the differences in age among the new nurses targeted by the intervention. A recent trend observed at the facility is that many of the newly recruited nurses from Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree programs are also advanced in age. Smiley et al. (2021), reporting on a nursing workforce survey, presented the findings that the median age of Registered Nurses (RNs) is 52 years. The report also projected that the aging of the nursing workforce will be a continual trend beyond the year 2020 (Smiley et al., 2021). The implication is that the majority of established practicing RNs are older than 50 years, and even though new hires are entering the profession, their age does not greatly reduce the median value. At the facility, the nurses joining the workforce are generally of a wide age range, including individuals between 22 and 46 years old.
NURS FPX 6105 Assessment 4 Assessment Strategies and Complete Course Plan
The age of the learners is an important diversity factor because the cognitive abilities of individuals usually decline with age. According to Clark et al. (2015), older adults have slower reaction times and lower accuracy when performing new skills, which can play a role in the acquisition of activity-oriented skills. Janacsek et al. (2012), on the other hand, found that the implicit learning abilities, which are responsible for the acquisition of motor, cognitive, and social skills, are more pronounced in younger individuals, with the ability to acquire the implicit skills peaking during adolescence and declining as the years progress. Consequently, age becomes an important factor when teaching work-life balance, which is a social skill. It is also worth noting that the older students have more experience in striking a balance between various demands of life and could benefit more from experiential training than their younger colleagues. Therefore, the delivery of the lesson has to be age-appropriate, with the clinical nurse educator identifying individuals’ personal learning abilities before delivering the lessons.
Strategies for Conflict Management
In the learning environment, it is inevitable that conflicts might occur among students or between students and the nurse educator. Valente and Lourenço (2020) argued that the conflicts arise due to differences in culture among the students in the classroom, or because of other factors such as the individuals’ personalities, value systems, interests, and learning needs. Conflict might also arise if some students feel excluded from the delivery of content because of diversity factors such as culture, age, or language (Valente & Laurence, 2020). Thus, conflict management strategies that can work in the learning environment will be useful in creating a conducive learning environment for the diverse classroom.
Valente and Laurence (2020) exemplified five conflict management strategies that can be adapted to the learning environment. They include (a) integrating, an approach for solving conflicts directly and in collaboration or cooperation among the parties involved; (b) dominating, in which the educator suppresses the students’ needs and expectations to achieve his/her goals; (c) obliging, in which the educator prioritizes the interests of the students rather than his/her own; (d) avoiding, in which the educator stays out of the situation that causes the conflict or chooses a neutral stance; and (e) compromising, in which the educator attempts to satisfy the interests of all parties by choosing a middle ground. Based on their survey of teachers in a typical classroom setting, the authors proposed that the educator should have high emotional intelligence (EI) quotient to be able to select the best conflict management approach to use in a particular situation (Valente & Laurence, 2020). However, there was a better correlation between high EI and the conflict management strategy of integrating, which enables the educator to find solutions that satisfy their own and the students’ needs.
Teaching Strategies
Teaching strategies are instrumental in delivering the course content to the targeted population of learners. They should be designed with the course outcomes in mind and should be tailored to the needs of the students. Thus, the process of designing the course and the teaching strategies involves determining the content to include, the expected outcomes for the learners, the potential factors that can hinder the effectiveness of learning, and the methods of addressing the hindrances. Consequently, this section details the learning outcomes for the proposed work-life balance course that targets new nurses being oriented to the facility, the teaching strategies that will be appropriate for the course, the barriers to learning and strategies for managing them, and the impact of teaching strategies and the strategies for handling barriers on learners’ motivation.
Learning Outcomes
The work-life balance course is created with the objective of helping the new nurses get acquainted with the new work environment and the patients they will serve and equip them with the knowledge to have a satisfactory and enhanced lifestyle despite the stresses that might occur. The assumption behind the objective of the course is that all nurses require coaching or orientation on striking a work-life balance, which is critical to the retention of a healthy and well-balanced workforce (Matsuo et al., 2021). As such, they need to learn and acquire knowledge and skills in understanding their context of work and adopting suitable practices to prevent burnout and stress, which are major contributors to intentions to leave the work environment.
The objective informs the design of the outcomes of the delivery of the course. By the end of the course, the learner shall have:
- Understood the benefits of achieving a work-life balance as a practicing nurse in the facility and in all other professional engagements,
- Recognized the signs of an unbalanced life,
- Learned about burnout, stress, and other signs of an unbalanced life and how to avoid them,
- Acquired skills in dealing with diverse patient populations to avoid stress related to relationships with patients,
- Mastered time management and goal setting,
- Learned to draw boundaries between work and home,
- Learned skills for stress management and conflict resolution,
- And found the most effective work methods in nursing practice.
Appropriate Teaching Strategies
The teaching strategies include the provision of traditional classroom lessons involving lectures and PowerPoint presentations and the use of flipped classrooms. The traditional classroom strategies are effective in conveying the theoretical information that the learners need to have in the process of building their knowledge and skills regarding work-life balance. They are based on the outcome-based education model in which the lesson and curricula are designed to emphasize the elements that learners should understand and adapt to their lives beyond the classroom environment (Tan et al., 2018). In this traditional method, the lectures and presentations are supplemented by student self-evaluation and educator evaluations to ensure that the learners are on course to achieve the expected outcomes. According to Tan et al. (2018), the evaluations should be based on theoretical and clinical knowledge.
The traditional methods are then supplemented with innovative teaching strategies such as the use of flipped classrooms. According to Pangadaman et al. (2019), flipped classrooms are used to provide learner-centered education and to promote the students’ engagement with an emphasis on self-learning. It can also incorporate team-based learning and the use of role-playing, but the evidence is not clear on the efficacy of mixing the team-based approaches with the learner-centered flipped classroom model in providing effective nursing education. However, according to Tan et al. (2018), nursing competency can further be built through learner-centered approaches that also incorporate role-playing and scenario simulation to get the learners accustomed to the real-life experiences that occur in the workplace environment. Moreover, Pangadman et al. (2019) proposed the incorporation of active learning into nursing education, a process that involves allowing the nurses to apply the knowledge acquired in the classroom directly in their practice settings. Thus, the traditional and innovative teaching strategies can be useful in educating new nurses on work-life balance but need to be tuned to specific learner needs to make them student-centered.
Managing Barriers to Learning
In a typical classroom setting of either traditional or non-traditional learners, there are various barriers that can hamper the students’ learning processes. According to Mavuso (2020), these barriers include language difficulties, reading and writing challenges, behavioral barriers, individual-specific barriers, and contextual barriers. The contextual barriers could include cultural influences, family backgrounds, and other family complexities, whereas individual-specific barriers include physical challenges, behavioral challenges such as absenteeism and attention-seeking, or motivational challenges that the individual learner might face (Mavuso, 2020). The educator needs to adopt strategies for managing these barriers to ensure the effectiveness of the education plan.
NURS FPX 6105 Assessment 4 Assessment Strategies and Complete Course Plan
Mavuso (2020) highlighted various strategies that educators can adopt to manage these barriers that individuals and entire groups in the classroom could face. The first strategy is the design and implementation of an institution-based learner profiling test to identify the learners who might have language and cultural barriers (Mavuso, 2020). From the profiling test, it would be possible to identify the learners who require specialized delivery of the course in a given language and to identify the learners who can speak multiple languages and are able to help other learners or patients to understand the concepts delivered in the classroom. The second strategy is the collaboration with community-based social workers and organizations to alleviate the contextual factors that some learners might face in the classroom environment (Mavuso, 2020). The third strategy is the adoption of a learning style inventory such as Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory to identify learners’ preferences and address the individual-specific barriers that learners could have.
The learner profiling strategy could prove effective in identifying potential language barriers for nurses coming from other cultures and speaking English as a foreign language. It could also help the facility identify the special language needs of various learners and enlist the services of interpreters or translators to help in delivering the verbal learning content to the new nurses (Mavuso, 2020). Moreover, the use of the strategy could also come in handy in completing the orientation of new nurses to their respective workstations where they will be interacting with patients with diverse language needs. The second strategy, which involves collaboration with social workers and other community resources, can equip the clinical nurse educator with the resources, skills, and capabilities that can help resolve new nurses’ cultural and family issues that can impede their orientation and learning in the specific facility. Social workers and community-based organizations are equipped with the knowledge and capacity to manage some of the social and psychological issues that learners might encounter when they encounter a new environment (Mavuso, 2020). Mavuso (2020) further explained that their incorporation in the teaching process would also equip the clinical nurse educator with the competency to support learners who have specific learning disabilities.
The third strategy is aimed at resolving the individual-specific learning barriers through the use of a learning style inventory. The use of the strategy is based on the fact that a student’s learning style influences their performance and achievement, and can be used to curate a learning strategy that will produce the best outcomes for the student (Shamsuddin & Kaur, 2020). Shamsuddin and Kaur (2020) elaborated that the adoption of learning style inventory is especially significant in blended learning environments in which the traditional classroom sessions are combined with non-traditional approaches. From the study, the authors concluded that the use of the inventory can equip the educator with the information they need to design suitable materials according to the mode of learning and capabilities that the learner exhibits (Shamsuddin & Kaur, 2020). It will, therefore, be a useful strategy for designing education sessions that meet each nurse’s individual needs and preferences for receiving lifestyle-oriented lessons.
Impacts of Strategies on Student Motivation
The motivation of students depends on various factors, including intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The strategies for overcoming the barriers to learning in the classroom and the strategies for teaching the learner population can both be useful in maintaining the learners’ motivation. According to Mavuso (2020), the strategies used to address individual learning barriers that students have, such as the use of learning style inventories, can help the learners who lack motivation in pursuing knowledge to become engaged in the learning process. According to Saeedi and Parvizy (2019), one of the strategies for maintaining students’ motivation is to conduct workshops or active learning to allow them to apply the theoretical concepts in their immediate working environments.
NURS FPX 6105 Assessment 4 Assessment Strategies and Complete Course Plan
The chance to apply the theoretical knowledge in practice is significant in enhancing adult learners’ level of engagement with the course delivery as they appreciate the importance and significance of the lessons delivered. It gives evidence for the positive impact of the use of role-playing, scenario simulation, and other active learning approaches in motivating students. Finally, the strategy of collaborating with social workers and community-based organizations helps in providing social and psychological support to learners, a strategy that helps motivate students (Nettasinghe & Samarasinghe, 2018). The motivation from the collaboration with social workers comes as a result of the support that the learners receive from the educator and the social workers and community resources.
Management and Motivation
In the process of providing staff development education that equips the target population with the knowledge and skills on work-life balance, the clinical nurse educator needs to create a suitable learning environment and motivate the learners to attend the desired sessions. The management of the class and motivation of learners requires a careful consideration of the learning environment to use, the use of evidence-based approaches for motivating learners, and the application of these approaches in the educational setting. This section details the elements necessary for promoting the motivation of the learners in the work-life balance program.
Learning Environment
The most appropriate learning environment for the delivery of the lessons on work-life balance and motivation for caring for patients is the welfare facility in the clinical practice setting where the nurse interacts with patients. The hospital has a staff welfare office in which clinicians and other non-medical staff receive support and psychological services – such as counseling – to help them cope with the difficulties of the working environment. According to Saeedi and Parvizy (2019), the provision of educational and welfare facilities in a clinical environment helps in improving the quality of clinical education. The educational facilities help support the conduction of workshops and physical training sessions akin to the traditional classroom environments. According to Nakayoshi et al. (2021), learning environments that allow for the provision of instructions by demonstration and promote student-focused teaching motivate students to self-practice the acquired knowledge and skills repeatedly, which inspires the retention of knowledge. For instance, pl
