The educational process in the healthcare field is a significant part of the field’s success. The more knowledge a student can learn and apply in practice, the better will be the delivered service. Consequently, as healthcare field representatives, nurse educators are greatly concerned with preparing future professionals. Through designing the educational curriculum and studying the teaching techniques and styles, they aim to achieve the ultimate goal of healthcare improvement.
Curriculum program development and revision represent a never-ending arduous process. According to Neville-Norton and Cantwell (2019), “curricular maps are never considered complete” (p. 90). They require ongoing development and improvement to ensure student engagement, curriculum alignment, and sufficient quality of content. Such a process must not solely reside in theory, which implies implementation, testing, and observation. However, the implementation results must be collected first, which obliges nurse educators to solicit information from faculty members and students attending the course.
In this context, teaching styles have a reciprocal relationship with student engagement, retention, and satisfaction. Teaching style directly influences the student’s perception of received information. Therefore, students’ engagement in education indicates how appealing the teaching style is (Parson et al., 2018). For instance, the traditional teaching style of lecturing proved not compelling enough to ensure peer satisfaction and retention (Parson et al., 2018). Consequently, the faculty that does not put effort into teaching style improvement can hardly progress in providing better patient care.
One reason for the lack of improvement is the weak ability of freshly graduated students to adjust to actual working conditions. Traditional curricula based on medical diagnoses and patient populations can no longer enclose all the knowledge the students need to become professionals (Neville-Norton & Cantwell, 2019). In particular, they lack student engagement and practical knowledge implementation, which results in graduates’ lack of confidence. Consequently, innovative curricula redistribute knowledge concepts across the program and emphasize active teaching and learning, including case studies, simulations, and concept maps. Ultimately, comprehending analogies allows for a quicker reaction to changing circumstances without the need to study every concept explicitly.
Contemporary nurse educators face a significantly complex task regarding curriculum development and management. They constantly require informative updates from faculty and students and assess the interconnection of teaching styles and students’ engagement, retention, and satisfaction. As traditional approaches struggle to provide constant improvement, nurse educators focus on innovation, incorporating peer-inclusive practices into their curricula. These resource and time-consuming activities are necessary to ensure qualitative delivery of healthcare services.
References
Neville-Norton, M., & Cantwell, S. (2019). Curriculum mapping in nursing education: a case study for collaborative curriculum design and program quality assurance. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 14(2), 88-93. Web.
Parson, L., Childs, B., & Elzie, P. (2018). Using competency-based curriculum design to create a health professions education certificate program the meets the needs of students, administrators, faculty, and patients. Health Professions Education, 4(3), 207-217. Web.