This case study reflects on the experiences of a nursing educator, Julie Johns who has been commissioned to a local hospital to develop skills and new training to a group of volunteers. This group is made up of three college students, two retired soldiers, and a stay-at-home mother. All of them are considered to have had insufficient and low-quality training. Johns is interested in equipping these individuals with basic knowledge on how to adapt to the hospital environment. The learning theories to be applied in this case would include behavioral theories, cognitive theory, and adult learning theory.
Behaviorist learning theory mainly focuses on observable change. The theory perceives learning as a stimulus-response (S-R) condition. Behaviorist emphasizes on close examination of learners’ response to certain conditions and consequently manipulating the environment to bring about the intended change on the learner. In this study, Johns would either change the results of a response or modify the stimulus conditions to amend the group’s response and attitude (Schmidt et al., 2018). Through emphasizing on observable human behavioral change and the effects of the punishment/ reward system, Johns would obtain the results from the volunteer group. This theory would be more favorable to the college students who are well conversant with the reward/punishment system than the rest.
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The cognitive theory stresses on the internal changes of learning. It focuses on what goes on inside a learner. Cognitive theorists hold that the most important aspect of learning is the individual learner’s thoughts, perceptions, and memory. The reward system is not essential in this approach than the learner’s goals and expectation from a learning session or system. In this case, a study composed of diverse individuals; each one of them would have a different perception of the educator and the conditions around them (Ashby & Valentin, 2017). Their cognition would determine the response in each of them. Johns would also emphasize that in this approach, learning is not only from teacher-student interaction but also from learners’ previous experiences and expectations.
Adult learning theories also explain learning from the adults’ perspective. As a common rule, adults require to be included in planning their method of instructions. These theories express the need for an environment for admitting mistakes in the process of continuous learning. Openness, acceptance, and mutual trust are essential in this approach (Courtney, 2018). In dealing with this diverse group, Johns would need to consider the aspects of experience, orientation to learning and self-concept among the volunteers. Therefore Johns would also need to establish the motivation, aspirations, and experiences of the older adults in the hospital environment.
After completing this study, I am aware of the duties that I will need to accomplish in order to change and modify a program to accommodate hospital and school’s needs. Like in Johns’ case, I will deal with a group of diverse individuals with varying experience and aspirations. I will hence be required to apply the skills I have learned from the study, nursing practice, and theories. In determining the best solution for the group, I will have to initially use various approaches in equipping the group with the necessary knowledge to adapt to the hospital environment. After that, I will deduce the best learning approaches for the group.
I will also use the nursing experience in focusing on the results of a teaching plan by applying various learning styles in involving the learners and motivating them towards comprehending the learning experience. This will be essential not only for this group but also for learners in nursing practice classes. Most learners in the nursing classroom have sufficient cognition of what and how they like to learn and hence to reinforce them through with different approaches and tools will help them advance their motivations and learning styles.
References
Ashby, F. G., & Valentin, V. V. (2017). Multiple systems of perceptual category learning: Theory and cognitive tests. In Handbook of categorization in cognitive science (pp. 157-188). Elsevier.
Courtney, S. (2018). Why adults learn: Towards a theory of participation in adult education. Routledge.
Schmidt, R. A., Lee, T. D., Winstein, C., Wulf, G., & Zelaznik, H. N. (2018). Motor control and learning: A behavioral emphasis. Human kinetics.
