Running head: HEALTHCARE AND NURSING 1
Future Directions in Contemporary Learning and Education
Introduction
Nursing is an important aspect in the medical field and if focuses in ensuring that the patient acquires quality services while under treatment. Therefore, it requires a lot of training to the persons who want to engage in the profession. This is to reduce the mistakes that may arise while offering the services to the patients and placing the life of a patient at risk. To ensure that the trainees acquire the correct and helpful education and skills in their area of interest, a nurse educator is required. This is a person who is mostly found in settings such as the hospitals, higher education schools where nursing is taught and can also be moving around the communities and their role is to teach graduates of the school of nursing and also the community at large the techniques and ways to offer quality health care.
Technological has of late being incorporated into students learning. Institutions have installed new technology in their setups to help them to teach and install skills to the minds of the student. There is the emergence of innovation to help to teach such as massive open online courses, adaptive learning technologies, using simulations or games in conveying educational messages, flipped classroom setting and inquiry-based learning. As a nurse educator, one needs to incorporate technology to help in reaching many students and using a simple way to teach fundamental techniques.
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Course to develop
As a nursing educator, I would like to develop the skills and educational background of the nurse midwives (Mona, 2016). These are the persons who are responsible for assisting the mothers during the pregnancy period and also during the delivery of the newborn babies. They are also responsible for taking care of the newborn babies and ensure they access vaccines at the right time. Some of the responsibilities of a midwife include taking care of the mother during her gestation period, providing the screen test services to the expectant mothers, counseling and advising the mothers. More so, a midwife help in the delivery of the child, solve the complicated deliveries and offers to advise to mothers in case of misfortunes such as stillbirth (Mona, 2016). In another hand, a midwife provides counseling services to the mothers on how to take care of the infants and also are responsible for teaching and providing relevant information about the healthy living of an expectant mother and also the newborn baby to the community.
Simulations/ Gaming Strategies
Due to the advancement in technology, there is set up of games and other simulations that are commonly used for entertainment (Kaszkowiak, 2017). However, in the recent time, they are installed with educational contents that make them a suitable item for studying. They reflect a real-life situation to the student using virtual means. They are of great help to students who are mainly undertaking technical courses. There are educational games which can be defined as the application of the games that can be entertaining in passing educational information by creating a balance of educational content and entertainment (Kaszkowiak, 2017). The different types of games which includes video games, action games, adventure games, role-playing games and educational games.
Simulation, on the other hand, refers to the use of complex technological types of equipment that helps to create a scenario that is almost similar to a real-life situation. This helps to increase the skills of a student and help him, or she see the practical side of something away from the theory that is taught in lecture halls. The developers of the simulators make sure that they combine the entertainment part and the educational part to make the students enjoy while still running (Kaszkowiak, 2017). The learners are engaged while learning through the use of simulators and the games. These simulators and games can be accessed by the students at any time and at any place that is they can use them either at school and at home.
Using simulators and the educational games can help to improve learning of the science related courses like nursing. They provide suitable conditions for learning where the learner can learn at his or her own pace, whenever he or feels like and also incorporating the theory part into a visual, practical world (Kaszkowiak, 2017). This helps the students to understand the concept even if in the theory part they seemed hard. They are also designed to meet every learner need hence ensuring no one is left behind while learning.
When applied in the lecture hall setting, it helps the lectures by making their explanation work easier. The lecture has a practical model that he or she can use as a reference to help create an image in the minds of the student (Kaszkowiak, 2017). He or she is also able to establish individual student’s strength, and weakness is making it easier for the lecture while assigning roles and also creating groups. Simulators and games should be used as supplementary modes learning helping to emphasize the education that will be taught in the classroom. Where they are used, they have shown great improvement in the way the students understand the concept taught. Examples of institutions that use the games and simulators are;
John Hopkins School of Nursing
The main reason that the facility offered to use the simulations was to teach students on how to treat patients by providing a real-life situation to the students when they were still studying. These are mainly applied to the students who are taking medical related courses (Saddler, 2017). The simulation center provides a suitable condition for the students who are taking medicine, nursing, and other health-related courses to have a first-hand experience of the ideas they are taught.
The facility occupies the area of about 13000 square foot. To construct the entire facility was about 6.8 million dollars. This was created in the year 2017 in the medical campus in the East Baltimore replacing the older facility. It has the simulation of different types ranging from the array of operating, emergency and the intensive care units which are situated in different rooms. The facility has items which are like real people which contain simulated pulses and traceable vital signs (Saddler, 2017). The simulators can lie on the hospital beds, and they can act as if they are breathing like the normal human beings and they have an installed program that allows them to produce some sounds and noises. The facility is designed and constructed like a real hospital.
Dr. Elizabeth Hunt, who is the director of the center and also an associate professor of anesthesiology, critical care medicine and pediatrics at the Hopkin's School of Medicine, explains that it is essential to provide a real-life situation to the students undertaking medicine-related courses (Saddler, 2017). She explains that in the case of the first years' medical students, they will have to learn the theory in the class like in subjects like anatomy. In this, they will be taught the basic such as the different organs. Then they will proceed to the lab where they dissect the body of a cadaver and then enter to the simulation laboratories where they will advance their skills that they learned practically. Hunt states that simulation is an added subject in the medical student's curriculum.
The students also explained that the use of the simulations during their studies helps them to have a better understanding of the subject that is taught in the lecture halls. It also helps to contain the high-pressure scenes at the real hospital situation by availing the first-hand experience. The students who are using the simulators have to make decisions like it was a real-life situation making them able to make critical decisions in the future (Saddler, 2017). They experience the real-life situations on the facility since the facility is equipped with gadgets that make it look exactly like a hospital. The sounds of the patient wards, the intensive care units, and the labor wards are exactly like those emitted in a real-life situation.
The institution has greatly invested in technology to try and avail realistic experience to the students. The facility is accessed by the medical students and other licensed clinical staffs linked with the institution for free while outsider’s access it for a given fee (Saddler, 2017). Research done by the institution established that the students who are taught using the simulators were capturing the concepts faster and were able to deal with the real-life issues in a good manner. The facility has been of great help and has many advantages to the institution and also to the students undertaking the medicine-related courses (Saddler, 2017). They can access realistic experience from the simulators. Hence they understand the concept that is taught in the lecture halls. It has also made the work of the professors and lectures easier by helping the students understand the concepts faster. As a result of the realistic experience, the students offer quality medical services to the real-life patients.
Boise State University School of Nursing
A group of nursing and the gaming professionals from the institutions had created a wearable technology that gave a chance to the nursing students practice. It was a simulation that helped them to learn complex theories and concept of nursing (Ponoroff, 2016). The Virtual Nursing Simulation with Custom Haptic System for Patient Safety is the technology that was created to ensures that the students were able to touch and interact within the virtual world without the need of a human manikin. Anthony Ellertson, who is the director and clinical associate professor of Boise State's Games, Interactive Media and Mobile Program, explains that the by applying the virtual reality in the education gives the students a chance to practice their learned skills in a realistic environment which is not risky (Ponoroff, 2016). They also reduce the cost of teaching the students which enables them to offer training to a large group of nursing students.
The innovation requires less capital to set up as compared to the human manikins. The basic manikins are estimated to cost from fifteen thousand dollars and sixty-four thousand dollars which is a bit expensive for many institutions to afford (Ponoroff, 2016). These make them not available in many institutions for students practicing. The virtual reality technology is less expensive costing about five thousand dollars, and it takes a short time of about four to six months to create a new game.
There is the use of Oculus Rift and a custom haptic system that is similar to the video games technology to create the simulator. The main purpose of creating such a simulator is to give the nursing students an opportunity to practice certain basic medical procedures. The technology takes the students through a virtual environment and helps in grading them on how well they carry out the basic procedures (Ponoroff, 2016). The development of the technology enabled the team who developed it win the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET) Outstanding Work (WOW) award.
The use of the technology has benefits to the institution, the students and the community at large (Ponoroff, 2016). This is by helping to raise the standards of medical services offered to the patient and ensuring that proper and adequate skills are installed in the minds of the medical students. This is done by making the work of the lectures easier, making the teaching of medical related courses easier, offering realistic experiences to the student using a virtual environment and making the students to make correct decisions on emergency cases easily. The institution has been accredited to use the technology and also carry out more research on how to improve it to increase its efficiency. This is after an evaluation of the standards of education and teaching that showed that the technology and institution had met the criteria (Ponoroff, 2016). These opened up opportunities for more research and technological advancements.
Use of simulators and educational games can be a good innovation that would help me as a nurse educator to teach the basics educational contents and skills about midwife nursing to many nurse graduates and other interested participants. It can be done by creating a simple game that got the relevant content about the procedures to help an expectant mother by the midwife. As a nurse educator, it is important to buy and install a simple simulator that will help to emphasize the theory that is taught in the lecture halls. This is by giving the students a chance to have virtual experience by which they will apply in the real-life situations. However, if it is too expensive to install one, it is also advisable to install a virtual game that will also help in as the simulator would. It is also relevant to create simple games that could be accessed on the people smartphones and tablets. These are affordable equipment that the students use in their day to day life.
The educational games that will be created will mainly focus on teaching the nurses on roles and responsibilities of the midwives to the prospective students. They will be taught and also apply it in the virtual games about their role in respect to the health status of the mother and child from the gestation period to the time of delivery. They will be notified about some of the challenges that arise at that time and even the time of childbearing and also some procedures explained on how to deal with the challenges effectively. There may be practical explanations from the experts on how to make use of the modern technology in their work and also how to carry out some of the basic procedures in their working areas.
To assess the performance of the innovations, one needs to take research on the performance of the students that used the simulators and games in their studies and compare to those that never used it. This can be done by mere observation on how the nurses offer services to the patients and how they can solve various challenges that may arise while they are carrying out their work. Tests either in the field of applications or the normal test can also help to evaluate the performance of the two groups of nurses.
It is important to involve the other nurse educators in the whole process of creating, installing and making use of the simulators and games in teaching nursing students. This will help to create a pool of ideas that are to be incorporated into the innovation. They will help to come up with the best simulator or game to install or create the relevant information that the innovation should contain. They will also help in assessing the students and establish how the innovation is influencing the performance of them. Also, they will help in coming up with the necessary recommendation to improve the simulator or gaming effectively.
Pros and Cons of using Simulators and Educational games
The use of the simulators and educational games poses many advantages to the students and teachers. It helps in making many concepts look simpler and easier for the students to understand. These make the teaching of the subject a bit easier for the lecturer. The student is also able to grasp the basic concept that they apply in their real-life situations. Their use also gives the students a chance to experience various practical educations on the virtual technology (Hammond, 2017). This boost the remembrance of the concepts by the student. By offering experimental part, they make the learning of the students less boring and make it exciting. It also helps in improving the confidence of the nurse while dealing with a real human being since he or she has already experienced it in the virtual technology
However, the use of the innovation can have some disadvantages. The installation or creation of the types of equipment necessary can be a bit expensive and cannot be accessed by most learning institutions. This makes it not apply to all students (Hammond, 2017). By making it a bit entertaining, some relevant concepts may be left out. This can place the lives of the patients at risk if the nurse serving them does not have the grasp of all the required contents.
Conclusion
The use of technology in the educational sector proves to be very beneficial to the students, the teachers or the person responsible for teaching the students, the institution of learning and the community at large. Nursing is an important aspect in the medical field and its focus is to ensure that the patient acquires quality services while under treatment. Therefore, it requires a lot of training to the persons who want to engage in the profession. This is to reduce the mistakes that may arise while offering the services to the patients and placing the life of a patient at risk as well as to ensure that the trainees acquire the correct and helpful education and skills in their area of interest, a nurse educator is required. Technological has of late being incorporated into students learning. Institutions have installed new technology in their setups to help them to teach and install skills to the minds of the student. There is the emergence of innovation to help to teach such as massive open online courses, adaptive learning technologies, using simulations or games in conveying educational messages, flipped classroom setting and inquiry-based learning. Use of simulator and educational games in the field of nursing and the medical department in whole is essential as it offers realistic experience to the students helping them to grasp the basic concept. As a nurse educator, I would advocate for the installation and creation of the simulators and educational games to help in teaching the students in the technical courses.
References
Hammond, K. (2017). Advantages & Disadvantages of Simulation Games. It Still Works . Retrieved from https://itstillworks.com/12599408/advantages-disadvantages-of- simulation-gameswearable-technology-train-nursing-students/
Kaszkowiak, N. (2017). Games as teaching method. Cometa Research . Retrieved from http://cometaresearch.org/educationvet/didactic-games-as-teaching-method/
Mona, M. (2016).Duties and Responsibilities of Midwife. Nursing Exercise . Retrieved from http://nursingexercise.com/midwife-duties-responsibilities/
Ponoroff, L. (2016). Boise State Develops Wearable Technology to Train Nursing Students. Medical Training Magazine . Retrieved from https://medicalsimulation.training/nursing/boise-state-develops
Saddler, M. (2017). Johns Hopkins facility offers real world training in simulated setting. The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved from http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-hs-hopkins- simulation-hospital-20170728-story.html
