Summary of Teaching Plan
The teaching plan was developed to enlighten members of society on how to respond to emergency cases that require the provision of first aid. The teaching plan will target members of the society who are above 17 years. The lessons will be approached from two perspectives. The first groups that will be targeted with this knowledge are individuals who are at institutions of higher learning. It is expected that the target group will include learners in high school and college levels. Managing this group would be easy because the lessons can be incorporated into their normal syllabus. It is also easy to find a large group of learners in schools, making the process of enlightening this first group easy.
The second group includes members of the society who are not in learning institutions. These are individuals who are working or are engaged in other activities within society. Finding this group is not as easy as it is to find the first group (Lundy & Janes, 2009). In order to manage them, learning will be offered at social institutions, especially in the workplaces, in churches, and other religious institutions. It is only at these places that adults converge quite often. The lessons will be offered once a week to both groups for a period of six weeks. It will cover all the six units that they are expected to cover. The first three weeks will involve theoretical work that will be done in a classroom setting. The last three weeks will involve practical work on how these community members can respond to cases of emergency in case a disastrous event takes place. The seventh week will be administering the test to determine if the learners have been able to grasp the knowledge that was passed.
Epidemiological Rationale for Topic
Natural calamities and terrorist attacks have affected members of society in various ways. It is worrying that a majority of people in the society lack basic skills to offer professional help to victims of disastrous events. In fact, Stewart (2004) says that in most cases, the presence of people in such scenes always worsens the situation. It is so because the majority of such people go there, not with a view of offering help, but to witness the tragedy so that they can give a first-hand report about it. Some of those who are moved by pity and decide to help do not have knowledge on how to handle victims. For this reason, their efforts only add to the pain and more harm to the victims.
This lesson aims at addressing this issue so that we can have resourceful members of society who can offer professional help to the victims before they can be taken to hospitals for further medical check-ups. The focus group includes all members of the society who are above 17 years. Terrorism has become a real threat in society. The decision to focus on members of the society who are above 15 years was because they are energetic individuals who have the capacity to offer first aid. It is also expected that this resourceful group will be able to pass the knowledge they learn from this lesson to other members of the society who were not able to attend the teaching sessions. As such, the knowledge will be available to all members of the community who may be interested in learning them.
Evaluation of Teaching Experience
The experience that is expected from this teaching plan can be predicted by the experience of similar projects that have been conducted in the past. It has always been observed that it is easier to deal with young learners who are still in learning institutions than adults. They always have a higher capacity for grasping new concepts about this field. They are thirsty for knowledge, and always ask questions that make it easy to enhance knowledge sharing. The classroom setting where such a learning process takes place is very appropriate in administering knowledge. On the other hand, the teaching experience when dealing with adults is always unpleasant. They are very rigid during such classes, always assuming that they know everything. They are slower in grasping concepts than the younger generation. The setting under which the learning process takes place is also not conducive enough to promote sharing of new knowledge. Using religious institutions to teach has been confirmed as one of the reasons why adults rarely get to understand concepts that take a short time for the younger generation to grasp.
Community Response to Teaching
In order to determine community response to the planned teaching, it is necessary to analyze how they responded to similar lessons in the past. According to Theobald (2008), there has been a concern among community members on how they can learn basic skills that can enable them to address issues of emergency arising from various forms of disaster. In the past, the community has been receptive to such teaching programs. They consider it an opportunity is given to them to address issues that may affect their relatives, friends or members of society in cases of emergency. Although the turnout is always poor, members of society always appreciate the efforts in place to help educate and empower them. It is expected that the same positive response will be experienced in this new teaching process.
Areas of Strengths and Areas of Improvement
Community teaching on how to manage disaster within the society has received a massive boost from various sectors of the society. The government support for these projects has been one of the main strengths. This support makes it easy to coordinate with schools because the administrators find it more acceptable to work with approved societies. The strategy to target learners in schools and incorporate the lessons into their syllabus has also been seen as another important strength. It makes learners take this process as seriously as they take other examinable subjects. However, some areas need to be addressed with a view to finding a better solution. There is a need to find the best alternative when dealing with adults. The approach of using religious institutions is not as effective as it would be expected by the concerned stakeholders. The approach of using the workplace is also not very attractive because the target group may not be in a learning mood. In order to address these weaknesses, it may be necessary to identify a section of the society that will be willing to take part in the classes actively. The classes may be organized on Saturday evenings when they have addressed other pressing personal needs.
References
Lundy, K. S., & Janes, S. (2009). Community health nursing: Caring for the public’s health. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Stewart, D. A. (2004). Effective teaching: A guide for community college instructors. Washington, DC: Community College Press, American Association of Community Colleges.
Theobald, P. (2008). Teaching The Commons: Place, Pride, And The Renewal Of Community. New York: Westview Press.