Description #
Session will allow community health nurses to review and improve teaching techniques for adult home-intravenous clients so that they can be independent and competent.
Learning Objectives #
- Applies principles of adult-learning to all teaching related to home gravity infusion.
- Applies knowledge learned from module while teaching clients to self-administer gravity intravenous therapy at home.
- Demonstrates and coaches clients to safely learn self-administration of gravity intravenous therapy at home.
- Adapts teaching and coaching techniques to specific client needs.
Introduction #
Purpose: Review the concept of adult “readiness to learn” to increase client leaning outcomes and nurse teaching satisfaction.
Objectives
This learning unit is intended to give nurses the opportunity to:
1. Define “readiness to learn.”
2. Review four components of the readiness to learn model including:
a. Physical readiness
b. Emotional readiness
c. Experiential readiness
d. Knowledge readiness.
3. Identify the readiness to learn principles in case study examples.
4. Apply knowledge gained from this unit while teaching clients to self-administer IV medications by gravity.
Introduction
Learners in each teaching situation have different ways of learning. This is influenced by their roles, context and who they are in the moment, the history of their personal journey, their cultural beliefs and practices, their education level, and their past experiences that have shaped the way that they learn. As nurses we connect with each individual to understand who they are so that we acknowledge their uniqueness and tailor each learning situation to that understanding and connection. Nurses use knowledge from many domains in order to teach clients in the community. Carper (1978) was the first to identify nurses’ knowledge as fitting into four patterns or “ways of knowing”. These patterns include: empirical, ethical, personal knowing, and aesthetic. Each pattern is essential to nursing practice and utilizing all the patterns of knowing promotes integrated and appropriate nursing care. It is important to acknowledge and articulate this as the essence of nursing knowledge. As we learn to articulate what we do, we increase the awareness of other team members and the public of the nurses contributions to patient care in general and self-care by patients in particular.
How many times have you been asked to “teach them how to do that?” Nurses require complex skill sets and knowledge bases to meet the learning needs of a diverse client population. The acuity and complexity of clients in the community is growing exponentially and will continue along this trajectory.
After learning needs are identified the nurse must determine the client’s readiness to learn. Readiness to learn is the time when a learner demonstrates an interest in learning the information necessary to maintain optimal health. The four components of readiness to learn include: 1) physical readiness; 2) experiential readiness; 3) emotional readiness; and 4) knowledge readiness; all of which should be assessed prior to teaching. Case studies will be used to demonstrate this process.