How can I provide this type of experience in healthcare education without hurting someone?  I truly feel that individuals learn more from their mistakes than through their success.  However, in healthcare, patients expect our success 100% of the time. Educating clinicians through experiential learning is difficult. However, through the use of innovative technology and teaching strategies, I hope to make this possible.

 

In order to attain this goal from a global perspective, I have several learning objectives that I wish to complete beyond my master’s degree from MSU. Through a combination of technical skills, understanding of the needs of adult learners and my integration of pertinent technology into an instructional milieu, I will have made the significant contributions to healthcare education that I had intended when I began this journey. 

 

Attaining Technical Skills

 

One of the many reasons that I enrolled in the Master’s in Educational Technology (MAET) program is that I wanted to learn how to “gamify” my training. Now that I finally know what this means, I realize that the MAET program has given me the foundation for education that I need to make this goal meaningful. I plan to finish my serious games certificate and learn the technology in which to create them. Through games, I hope to create engagement in my staff’s learning and allow them to fail, fail again and continue to fail until they succeed while having fun!

 

 

Becoming a Student of Adult Learning

 

While having fun is important, something that I feel strongly about is the integration of theory into practice. Of particular interest is the work of adult learning theorist David Kolb, particularly his experiential learning model. Through this model, he suggests that significant learning is done within the context of immersion and experience. For this learning to be truly meaningful, one needs to be able to apply what has been absorbed into similar yet different experience. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This model is exactly how I have learned to debrief my staff following clinical training utilizing human patient simulators. While I feel that I have only scratched the surface of this model, I am excited to see measurable outcomes as a result of the type of training that I provide. One of the reasons that I entered the school of education is so that I can actually apply models such as

this to practice in a purposeful way.

 

Learning the model and practicing it is not enough to truly show that I am using it in the correct context. This is why I have attained the Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator (CHSE) certification. Preparation for this certification provided me a foundation for which to truly learn how to create meaningful experiences for my staff utilizing medical simulation. Through simulation, I can truly allow my staff to make life-threatening mistakes in a non-threatening environment.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Integration of Technology and the Creation of eLearning

 

The creation of strong flight nurses not only requires exercise in clinical decision making, practice of vital procedures and competency training; it requires a solid didactic foundation. While training to the former can be done with human patient simulation, the latter requires a strong, standardized and engaging curriculum. I feel that this curriculum needs to be created with robust presentations, exercises and assessment. While in the MAET program, I have had the privilege to view some amazing eLearning courses and modules. I have reviewed eLearning created by educators, business, engineering and healthcare. While I have acquired some experience in the creation of eLearning, I hardly consider myself “skilled” at this point. I wish to change that and increase my skill in integrating technology for instruction into progressive and appealing eLearning programs.

 

A program of particular interest that I have started to learn and hope to become proficient with is called Articulate, powerful eLearning software. While robust, it is a bit complicated and will require significant study in which to become skilled at creating the interactive courses that I wish to emulate. Luckily, Articulate has a great twitter feed, an amazing eLearning community, wonderful online support and a large set of video tutorials.

 

While seemingly different, these goals tie together and compliment one another. As our industry is changing, so will the requirements to train this type of clinician. With a strong foundation in adult learning, increased technical skill and the ability to tie it together with engaging eLearning, accomplishing my first of many lifelong learning goals will assist me in making my team better than I ever was as a practicing flight nurse. Shouldn’t this be part of any educator’s goal set?