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| navigate: home: magazine: spring 2001: article | |
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Health care instructors gather for professional development conference By Susan J. Burlingame | ||||||
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Nurses, educational program coordinators and administrators in health care are training new personnel at an extremely rapid pace. These instructors teach in a variety of settings, such as licensed practical nurse and nurse’s aide programs, secondary and postsecondary health occupation programs, long-term care and other medical care facilities. Although these instructors may be expert clinicians, expertise in teaching requires additional skills. Often, they have little time to develop themselves professionally, because they are too busy teaching to even think about how they can be better teachers. Their stress levels can be very high, their personal goal satisfaction low, as they work diligently to train the next group of individuals in high-demand health care professions. For several years now, Penn State’s School of Nursing in the College of Health and Human Development has attempted to meet the needs of these individuals by collaborating with the College of Education’s Professional Personnel Development Center for Career and Technical Education. The School of Nursing’s annual conference Strategies: Educational Excellence for Health Care Providers, held at the Atherton Hotel in State College, provides the learning and networking opportunities these health care educators need. Penn State worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Education and reached out to people from all over the Commonwealth to plan what is often the only professional development conference the attendees are able to fit into their schedules each year. The conference offered professional development sessions in a variety of subject areas, including updates in the Nurse’s Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Program and Omnibus Reconciliation Act. It also provided sessions on Interactive Teaching Strategies, Clinical Coaching, Writing for Professional Publication and Infection Control Issues, among other topics. Penn State instructors, as well as invited guests, were the presenters for these sessions. Different from past conferences of its type, Strategies: Educational Excellence for Health Care Providers added personal development sessions to the conference agenda. Conference planners wanted to fulfill their mission to help participants learn ways to reduce stress, maximize their own health and manage challenging responsibilities. According to program chair Janetta Grapperhaus, a Penn State health occupations instructor, sessions in humor, health and wellness gave participants ideas for “nurturing the nurturer,” which leads to better performance in their instructor roles. “This particular conference has been held several times before,” she added, noting the conference’s new focus, “but this is the first that places equal emphasis on professional development and personal development. “It may be the only off-site professional development opportunity these health professionals experience this year, so we wanted to create an ambience for effective teaching and learning,” Grapperhaus said. In keeping with this theme, Dr. Janice Betz from the LaSalle University School of Nursing was tapped to deliver the keynote address. Titled “Competence Through the Creative Use of Humor: Jest for the Health of It,” the talk was designed to relax and amuse attendees, while giving them a sense of the important role humor plays for people as they interact with colleagues and students. She began her session with an icebreaker and went on to describe professions and worksites that demand humor, among them health care, nuclear submarines, air traffic control and teaching. Using a series of anecdotes, slides and research examples, Betz tried to drive home her point. “I would submit to you,” she urged, “that we really need to be funny on purpose to be effective teachers ... humor reinvigorates the teacher, as well as the student.” Betz described the advantages of humor, such as its physiological and psychological benefits, along with social and spiritual benefits. She also cautioned about what humor is not, warning participants away from sexist, racist, sexually or ethnically oriented and demeaning humor. To conclude her session, she offered a number of sources where people can find humor to share in the workplace. State College nutritionist and whole-health practitioner Monika C. Montag presented a personal development session on “Stamina-building Nutrition to Combat Stress and Fatigue.” She offered participants a holistic approach to achieving optimum health for themselves and described the six factors that affect health: fuel (food), rest/relaxation, exercise, one’s belief system and mental attitude, the environment, and genetics. In addition, she provided recommendations about vitamin supplements, water intake and a diet that includes fruits and vegetables, along with high-protein low-cholesterol foods, such as soy products, for a healthier lifestyle. Montag later presented a session on “Creating New Habits to Refresh and Energize Your Spirit.” Other personal development sessions focused on creating balance in one’s life, aromatherapy and massage. On the professional development side of the conference, Rebecca Beatty, instructor of nursing and coordinator of continuing and distance education in the Penn State School of Nursing, offered strategies for instructors who teach clinical skills. In the session on Clinical Teaching Preparation: Imagery and Feedback, she covered the basic ways to inspire students to feel confident in order to perform well in the clinical setting. She used the example of giving injections to demonstrate how a teacher coaches students through the process from gaining knowledge of a skill to actually performing the task. Positive mental imagery, creating a script and internal dialog to walk through the procedure and use of rhythmic cues are all ways to develop confidence in the action. “Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize performance,” Beatty asserted. She added that teachers need to ask themselves several questions in order to be effective, including: “Do we create fear of failure or build foundations for success? Do we model productive behavior? Do we teach as we were taught by our role models?” Another Penn State professor offered a session on “Writing for Professional Publication.” Dr. Edgar Farmer, associate professor of education, Workforce Education and Development, College of Education, encouraged participants to believe that their experiences are noteworthy, that editors are eager to read about their ideas. He then took attendees through a step-by-step course on how to submit articles for publication, from concept development to selecting journals, writing and revising manuscripts, and submitting articles to publishers. Participants also had the option of enrolling in pre- and postconference workshops. Sharon Lacue, instructor in nursing, Penn State Altoona, presented a workshop titled “Add Zest to Your Lectures: Using Technology as a Teaching Technique in the Classroom.” The postconference workshop was a repeat of the Nurse’s Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Program update offered during the conference by Lyn Forlizi, state coordinator of nurse aide training for the Pennsylvania Bureau of Vocational Technical Education. “For some teachers, their professional preparation may only be a three-day training program,” concluded conference coordinator Grapperhaus in a postconference interview, “and then they’re responsible for teaching nurse’s aide programs. “The conference has been tailored, in part, to this population and provides an opportunity for clinicians who do not have a strong background in teaching to network with people who do have teaching experience.” Evaluations received from the approximately 100 people who attended the conference indicate that the conference was well received. Participants appreciated the intimate environment and balanced approach to meeting their professional and personal needs. Plans for the next conference have begun, and committee members have agreed to integrate personal development sessions in an evening roundtable format, while focusing on professional development activities during the two-day program planned for Nov. 7 and 8 at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel. Penn State is reaching out to provide an important service to health occupation personnel across the Commonwealth by helping them to become better teachers, develop a supportive network and to remind them that the caregivers must first take care of themselves. An outreach program of Penn State School of Nursing, College of Health and Human Development, and Professional Personnel Development Center for Career and Technical Education, College of Education | |||||
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