INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE / July 9, 1991

 

 

 

Workshop emphasizes critical thinking

areer education often stresses

memorization but does not
give students enough experience
with real-life situations, says Em
Olivia Bevis, a nursing education
consultant.

She came to Douglas College
from South Carolina on June 24 to
lead a workshop designed to help
about 70 instructors and clinical
representatives look at the way
Douglas College’s psychiatric
nursing program trains students.

Too often, Beavis says, “we edu-
cate for a job rather than giving a
person the educational and
emotional skills to do the job.”

She encourages a “shift in em-
phasis from the memorization of
content to emphasizing the ability
to look at people and their
problems, to be creative and

critical thinkers, and helping them
find solutions.”

Rather than focus on lectures
and memorization, Beavis says,
programs such as psychiatric nurs-
ing should put more emphasis on
helping students experience
situations like those they will face
on the job.

This doesn’t require a change in
course content, but it can mean
role-playing, dealing with real
patients or discussing case studies
in class. “You learn by experienc-
ing reality — it makes more
sense,” Beavis says.

This approach may help
students learn better. With lectures
and memorization, she says, “in
two years the student has
forgotten all but 10 per cent of
what was learned. Basing it in

Recognize this face?

reality and in simulated problems,
where students have to wrap their
minds around a problem, they
remember up to 75 per cent.”

Ross Stewart, the director of the
psychiatric nursing program, said
the workshop was held because
“we had a sense that the way our
curriculum is set up now, it’s hard
work to produce the sort of
graduate needed. We're looking
for ways to do it better.”

Stewart says the workshop may
help psychiatric nursing instruc-
tors “change the way in which we
approach learning. Instead of a lot
of information-giving, we hope to
move towards something that
encourages the psychiatric nursing
student to be more of a critical
thinker.” m

 

 

 

 

 

Dawn Makey, Douglas College’s one and only shipping and
receiving clerk, is ready for a two- week motorcycle tour of
Montana with the International Christian Bikers Association.