Value of Teachers Who Know How To Teach

Discussion board post for NURS623 Clinical Teaching in Nursing, posted on May 15 2023. Post is in response to discussion about the qualifications of clinical teachers and challenges of teaching in the field of nursing.

I had been thinking about how important knowing how to teach actually is for individuals who are assigned preceptor or trainer roles. Given the current staffing conditions, it often falls to new staff to train other new staff, and even senior nursing staff only have an average of 2.5 years of nursing experience. As we lose profound experience, we risk a workforce that does not have the competency to teach, nor the maturity required to facilitate teaching.

Perhaps part of the issue is that there are not enough appropriately trained teachers available in the workforce to assign to these roles. I have worked in an emergency department where the job requirement for their nursing Educator position was a Master's degree, but they ended up having to hire someone who had not even applied for a Master's program yet, because of a lack of qualified candidates. The staffing realities make it challenging to find qualified individuals, and financial issues often make it difficult for nurses to pursue higher education to get this training.

I think another part of the issue is that the necessity for properly trained clinical educators and preceptors is not appreciated enough. I find this ironic because clinical teachers are actually teaching higher-level thinking. Per Bloom's taxonomy, lower-level learning involves remembering and understanding concepts, and applying them; higher-level learning involves analysis and evaluation of knowledge, and eventually the creation of knowledge at the highest level (Bloom, 1956).

Theory courses can prepare and evaluate nursing students at the lower-level categories, but it is clinical teaching that addresses higher-level learning. When students are immersed in the clinical environment, analyzing patient conditions, communication and interdisciplinary care delivery, rationalizing and evaluating their interventions, and ultimately creating their own care plans or innovative ideas for care delivery/patient management -- that is when students are engaging in higher-level learning.

We need a systemic appreciation for clinical teaching and preceptorship. There should be more of a qualification process to even become a preceptor; too often, departments just ask nurses to express interest in becoming one and then they become one, without training or qualifiers. I have seen brand new nurses become preceptors, and it is a challenging situation for me to accept when I see it. I am not sure of the solution, because the fundamental problem remains in the staffing shortage, making it difficult to find individuals to train people to teach, as well as qualified individuals to become preceptors/instructors.

References

Bloom, B. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives, handbook I: The cognitive domain. New York: David McKay Co Inc.