Activity Ten

‘Implementing sustainable practice both operationally and in the curriculum undoubtedly poses challenges for any school or department within the Polytechnic’ (Mann & Elwood)

For me the challenge of implementing sustainability is the fact that sustainability means different things to different people and  in various contexts.  A more sustainable practitioner in terms of lecturing veterinary nurses involves two key aspects:

1.       Managing workload, ie: working smarter, making what I do count across courses and across years.

• Using the TED ed resource as a formative assessment in sustainable in terms of workload, once I have set it up (using someone else’s high quality animation of wound healing stages) it can be rolled out in future courses. It may well be a relevant addition to the equine element of the RAT course.
• Adobe sessions reach a high number of students at the time and can be recorded for the rest and perhaps for future years.
• Forums reach many students but can be monitored as a once daily email digest.

 Lockwood (2005) warns against generating over long courses, the problem is one I struggle with. Currently, Veterinary Nurses in NZ are permitted to practice with a Certificate in Veterinary Nursing (one year).  Internationally Veterinary Nursing is a two or three year course. This is a problem with the course design of the National Certificate.  I have had the tendency to try to cram in Diploma level material to the Certificate course, this is of course a mistake and causes students to feel overwhelmed and disengage. Being aware of this and leaving out more advanced material will certainly improve sustainability of workload for both myself and students.

2.       Working with students to understand and introduce sustainable ideas around veterinary practice.  

• Health promotion and preventative healthcare, nutrition, parasite control, weight management, exercise.
• Reduce reuse and recycle.
• Educate about the preventable health problems bred into pedigree dogs.

Lockwood, F. (2005)  ‘Estimating student workload, readability and implications for student learning and progression.’ Manchester Metropolitan University. Available at:

http://wikieducator.org/images/5/5a/Odlaa2005Lockwoodestimating_student_workload.pdf

Accessed on 19.6.12

Mann & Elwood (No Date) A Simple Pledge. Available at:

http://www.otagopolytechnic.ac.nz/fileadmin/DepartmentalResources/Marketing/Simple_Pledge_Book_lastest_version_emailable.pdf

Accessed on 15.6.12

Activity Nine

The reality of today’s fast changing world is that,

‘People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to’. (NMC.2012, p4)

As education providers we are challenged to keep one step ahead of the game. The School of Veterinary Nursing has been pro- active on this and as a result is well placed for the next round, the move towards mobile learning.

Most of our students use either laptops or iphones in class. There are positive and negatives of this. They can sign in to moodle, and follow the course notes, they regularly google answers to curly questions that come up and find you tube videos to share. The disadvantage I notice mostly is the capacity for the disengaged to distract those around them and I have had class members asking others to turn it off as they can’t concentrate.

With so much information at our fingertips now the real skill in using it is the ability to sift and rate information.

‘Sense-making and the ability to assess the credibility of information are paramount.’ (NMC.2012)

 The Y generation are much more media savvy than my own generation, but still require guidance through the maze of veterinary information out there. Drug companies pushing, internet forums offering questionable advice, facebook friends answering questions, it is all available and accessed by our students. 

A current trend technology to work with this freely available and often excellent information is TED ed. This is a new platform through which teachers can build short lessons around short videos. After, or while watching the videos on TED Ed students answer multiple choice and short answer questions about what they're seeing and hearing, they get instant feedback on the multi choice questions.

This site allows me to hand pick use the fantastic resources that are available on youtube, I could even make and use my own videos (workload allowing) and structure an appropriate lesson around it. The format is fairly simple and it has been criticized for this. I see joy in its simplicity.

Take the tour @

http://ed.ted.com/

The New Media Consortium. 2012The Horizon Report. Available at:

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/HR2012.pdf

Accessed on 18.6.12.

Activity Eight

The learning theory that sits well with me personally is humanism. The humanist educator believes there is unlimited potential for human growth given the right circumstances,  encouraging self actualization and autonomy lies at the heart of the theory.

Veterinary Nursing is what they would call in Northern Ireland (where I have lived for most of my adult life) a vocation, a calling. The profession is notoriously poorly paid, the hours are terrible (many VN’s are allow themselves to be on call un-paid) it is not a glamorous job, eau de tomcat being a familiar scent on the VN’s uniform. We do it for the good of the animals. So the humanist assumption that , “people are inherently good and strive for a better world’ (Merriam & Cafella, 1991, p 132.). Seems apt to VN education.

Introducing students to reflective tools can open up a whole new aspect of practice. Traditionally, Veterinary Nurses have been taught the skills, and the theory of the job and been left to their own devices to work out the rest along the way. This is not an ideal situation, Veterinary Nursing practice can be highly emotionally charged, we nurse welfare cases involving neglect and cruelty, we routinely assist with euthanasia, intensive farming is facilitated by the veterinary profession, we may be involved in the care of laboratory animals, the list of issues is long……  In order to offer high standards of care to patients and their owners, a nurse requires a sound understanding of her own ethical stance and emotions. A VN must be equipped with coping strategies. Reflective practice is a core nursing skill that adapts to many aspects of practice. An ability to assess, reflect and improve contributes to wellbeing and encourages self development.  Nursing theory and models of nursing practice adapted from human nursing are relatively new ideas in Veterinary Nursing, it is only just coming to the fore overseas with the advent of VN degrees in the last decade.

Wound management is an ideal subject to introduce reflective tools. It is an ongoing process and the VN’s involvement in the process involves a clear requirement to assess, analyze, reflect, plan, act and  reassess…

So the humanist idea of working to facilitate development of the whole person is the idea, creating a ‘safe space’ to learn and develop through reflective practice is my goal. My flexible learning plan aims to increase my ability to connect with the distance students. This is the real challenge. I hope the increase in online contact through adobe and forum activity if managed carefully may improve the chances of achieving genuine connections with students as individuals.  

‘it’s not just enthusiasm for our subject that matters. Learners are quick to pick up the vibrations of our enthusiasm for themselves as people. Lecturers who come across as really liking learners- and respecting them and treating them accordingly- do much to inspire learners to learn’.

(Race 2010: p132)

Chapman, A. 2005 Kolbs Learning Styles. Available at:

http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm

Accessed on 16.6.12.

Merriam, S.B. & Caffarella, R.S. (1991). Learning in adulthood. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Race, P. 2010 Making Learning Happen. 2^nd Edition. Los Angeles: Sage

Pollard,A. (2005) Reflective Teaching 2^nd Ed. New York: Continuum

Activity Six

Wound management is an advanced nursing skill, both an art and a science. In my opinion this assessment would be better placed in the diploma course. There are more relevant rudimentary wound management topics that would be more suited to the certificate course, recognising complications for example, removing sutures, advising owners about wound care, the physiology of wound healing, and the appropriate use of dressings.  None of this is assessed as far as I know and all of this is essential at this level.

Currently the way the assessment for wound care is conducted is as a task out on its own. The students have to either provide video evidence or be assessed in person choosing and gathering the right equipment setting it up and flushing a wound or simulated wound. There is no requirement for them to prove that they understand the rationale, how often it is recommended a wound be flushed,  what types of wounds would require flushing or what type of dressing would be recommended to promote healing.

This promotes surface learning, “the intention to get the task out of the way with minimum trouble while appearing to meet course requirements” (Biggs 2003 p14).

The students know exactly what they are being assessed on and study only that. The unit standard system encouraging and rewarding mediocrity. This coupled with some students in work placement of questionable value, and most students in placement for a very short amount of time means that the likelihood of students gaining valid real life experience in this area is limited.  

Reflect on the strengths of your plan so far.

With a quality work placement a student would witness real wound management cases and this background knowledge would be picked up from senior nurses and interest stimulated for the student to engage in deep learning. This would happen in some cases and many of our students would employ deep learning on the subject. The aim with activity on the moodle forum would be to encourage these students to share their experiences with the rest of the group, with the use of photos and case studies. Hopefully some passion for the subject would come across.

Where are the gaps in your plan?

The main concern have is finding time in my own schedule to set this up and monitor the forum, additional adobe sessions mean evenings at work, finding valid case photographs. Concerns about student’s permission to photograph patients.

The crux of wound management in practice and the core nursing skill I promote across all subjects I teach is the ability to assess, reflect, plan and apply evidence based nursing interventions.

Although there are excellent youtube videos to use on TED ed for the underpinning knowledge of wound physiology and stages of healing, applying the basic skills of reflective and evidence based practice are not prominent in my plan. Yet….

Set some goals for what you still need to do to develop your plan.

A guest speaker adobe session from one of the big dressing companies might be a valuable addition.

Look at a strategy to connect the basics of the nursing a hospitalised patient unit and tie it in here.

Look out for appropriate case photos.

Biggs, J. (2003) Teaching for quality learning at University 2nd ed. London: The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.

Activity Seven

As a veterinary nurse in practice my motivation for maintaining high standards was for the good of the animals I directly cared for. As a veterinary nurse educator my driving force to promote best practice is still the ability to affect, admittedly indirectly, the level of care of the animals our students will be responsible for. Following on from this idea I see open education resources in veterinary nursing as having the potential to improve animal welfare standards.  People in the developing world are in need of the basic animal husbandry information that we have.   For what reason should we keep the information of how to care for an animal’s health privileged knowledge?

 I have travelled in the third world and witnessed first hand the misuse of animals, especially horses, mules and donkeys. The people caring for these animals income and lives depend on them.  Their poor husbandry practices are due to a lack of evidence based information and resources,  not ill will.  Could free and open information about animal husbandry and health have a positive effect on these peoples lives and on the lives of their animals. How about prevention of infection, or how  to trim a hoof, how to treat a hoof abscess or care for a wound, perhaps  the first signs of dehydration. It is all written in our notes.

Reading back over it all sounds a bit pie in the sky but how many of us use Wikipedia? And who had heard of it ten years, or even five or six years ago.

The benefit we may gain from collaboration with international veterinary nurse and veterinary technician educators would be to encourage the professional veterinary nurses in New Zealand to stand up,  raise their game and match or exceed the standards set for the profession in the USA and Europe.

Activity 5 Flexible Learning Strategies

Hello TED-ed..........Love it.
and heres the link to the document.

Flexible Learning Strategy

Activity 4

Of course there is more work to be done, onward and upward…..

I had a small group of our fulltime on site class for an informal group discussion at the café this week. The outcome of the group’s conversation and Ron’s bush-cam video got me thinking about this idea of access and equity specifically in the area of pronunciation and comprehension of the language of veterinary science. I remember on the first block course of my own VN training a lecturer saying that by the end of the course we will have learned 3000 new words and that if we had 3000 words of a new language  Italian or French for example, we would be pretty much fluent.  

 I am wondering if I may be able to do more support inclusivity across the range of courses (distance and fulltime) we offer at the certificate level. I suppose where I see inequity here is in the opportunity for clinical work experience where this language is imbibed along with the essential skills of the profession. There is a wide variation in the quantity and quality of practical experience for our students in  veterinary clinics. A few have been in a clinic for a number of years and many are complete novices. As it stands there is no requirement for a clinic work placement  to be secured before starting the distance cvn course, consequently some students are now at a major disadvantage still not having been able to secure a placement 4 months in. I was teaching a block course in Auckland to this group and there were 4 or 5 students in the room who had never set foot in a veterinary prep room,  The level of the course content we were delivering depended on some background knowledge, we were effectively speaking a foreign language ‘the needs of the broadest possible range of users’ has not been well enough considered in this instance. We found ourselves attempting to retrofit the fundamental content (including terminology) that has no place at a 4 day block course for 40 students. Ugly indeed.

 So love the idea of the Universal Design for Learning, yes. It all sounds fantastic. The existence of academic achievement gaps, or indeed fundamental knowledge gaps could be reduced on this particular course by becoming less flexible with our entry requirements and stipulating that a student secures x amount of hours per week in a veterinary clinic. Standards of practice in these clinics…. Now there’s a can of worms.

So I have got off the subject of language and pronunciation and things I can feasibly take positive action on, which is where the fulltimers have said they struggle and I have heard the distance students go astray. Having learned anatomy and physiology by correspondence as a 17 year old and suffering as I do from brachygnathia I understand the difficulty of pronouncing choledochus, perhaps it has something to do with my frenulum or my hypertrophic rugae, although I do suspect that my problem lies closer to the hippocampus region, maybe there is a foramen in my ependyma where all that stuff I used to know is escaping from…..

http://www.slideshare.net/derosac/universal-design-for-learning-4833805?src=related_normal&rel=3210361