NURS 6331 Week 3: Learner-Centered Classrooms-On-Site and Online

Get NURS 6331 Week 3: Learner-Centered Classrooms-On-Site and Online essay assignment

NURS 6331 Week 3: Learner-Centered Classrooms-On-Site and Online essay assignment

NURS 6331: Teaching Learning Strategies: Integrating Technology Into Nursing Education | Week 3

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.

—Adapted quote from Zig Ziglar, American author and motivational speaker

Educators often use well-placed, thought-provoking humor to break the ice in an on-site learning environment. When used as a classroom management strategy, humor can alleviate stress, prompt cognitive growth, and help educators capitalize on face-to-face (F2F) time in on-site environments.

F2F time, which is becoming increasingly rare in both academic and clinical settings, should consist of high-level, collaborative learning. Instead of using valuable F2F time to review materials, nurse educators should elicit participation and consistently look for opportunities to tailor the lesson towards the needs of learners. On-site environments provide learning opportunities that can be hard to replicate in other venues. As such, it is crucial that nurse educators understand how to use this time most effectively.

This week you explore the dynamics that influence the on-site environment by designing a lesson for an on-site classroom. You also examine how classroom management strategies, such as humor (illustrated above) can help nurse educators address classroom management concerns.

NURS 6331 Week 3: Learner-Centered Classrooms-On-Site and Online

At the start of each semester, Rosa likes to pose a “this” or “that” question to her online students. She finds that questions with no inherent right or wrong answer help to prompt dialogue among her students. Last semester, she asked students, “When do you prefer to study: in the morning or at night?” During the first 2 weeks of the course, Rosa was elated as she watched her students indicate their preferences, explain why, and then use these responses to create their own teams.

Building a sense of community is just as important in online environments as it is in on-site environments. Furthermore, coupling effective teaching strategies with instructional technologies can allow educators to capitalize on the unique advantages provided by online environments. This week, you explore how nurse educators use strategies and technologies to successfully transition their curriculum from on-site to online environments.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

• Construct a learner-centered lesson for on-site learning environments
• Evaluate classroom management concerns that can arise in on-site environments
• Evaluate teaching strategies that address classroom management concerns
• Adapt learning activities for online environments
• Evaluate classroom management concerns that can arise in online learning environments
• Evaluate teaching strategies that address classroom management concerns

Discussion Topic 1: Creating Learner-Centered Lessons for the On-Site Environment

You will be assigned to Discussion Topic Group 1 or 2 to post your initial assignment and will be posting your responses to your colleagues in the other Discussion Group. For example, students assigned to Discussion Topic 1 will be posting their initial assignment in the Discussion Topic Group 1 Forum and post their responses to their colleagues in the Discussion Topic Group 2 Forum.

Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?

Glinda: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.

Dorothy: I have?

Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?

Glinda: Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.

—The Wizard of Oz, 1939

What is a learner-centered teaching approach? Furthermore, how might you design a learner-centered lesson? Just as it sounds, learner-centered teaching approaches place the learner at the center of the lesson. Based in constructivism, this approach prompts learners to become active participants in their learning. Where traditional teaching approaches tend to place educators in a more omniscient role, learner-centered approaches require educators to scaffold student learning towards the achievement of learning objectives. Much like Glinda the Good Witch guided Dorothy on her journey home, so too should an educator guide learners through the examination of a new concept, skill, or process.

The ability to engage learners in this type of active learning is a crucial skill for nurse educators. Whether teaching nursing students, staff, or patients, educators must find an effective balance between the dissemination of information and hands-on, active learning. Doing so will not only benefit the learner but also the nurse educator.

To prepare

• • Reflect on the on-site learning environment. As a nurse educator, what type of classroom management concerns might you have about teaching in on-site situations?
  • Review this week’s readings on classroom management strategies. What does classroom management look like in the on-site environment? How might nurse educators employ strategies throughout their lessons to decrease classroom management concerns?
  • Reflect on the audience, learning need, learning objectives, and learning activity that you described in last week’s Discussion, “Crafting Meaningful and Measurable Learning Objectives.” How might you build upon these initial ideas to create a 15- to 20-minute lesson for the on-site environment? Specifically, what might you add to your activity to transform it into a comprehensive lesson that consists of a beginning, middle, and end?
  • Using a blank copy of the Lesson Plan Template document (introduced last week and also presented in this week’s Learning Resources), design a learner-centered lesson that aligns to your identified learning need and learning objectives.

Note: This Lesson Plan should continue the ideas started in the Week 2 Discussion. It should not build upon the Lesson that you have started for your Assignment, “Creating a Video Presentation for a Virtual Lesson,” which is independent from any Lesson Plans created for weekly Discussions.

By Day 3

Post a brief description of your learner-centered lesson and intended audience of learners. Explain your two greatest classroom management concerns related to this specific activity or for on-site learning environments in general. Justify your response. Then, upload your Lesson Plan to your Discussion posting.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.

By Day 6

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days using the following approach:

• Using this week’s Learning Resources and current literature, suggest two teaching strategies that would be most appropriate to address each of your colleagues’ classroom management concerns. Then, review* their Lesson Plans and provide a minimum of three meaningful edits, insights, and/or probing questions to each that could help them enhance the learning activities.

*Note: When providing feedback to your colleagues, you must download and resave their Lesson Plan with your initials at the end of the filename. In addition, all feedback must be written using track changes within the document. Be sure to upload this document to your response post.