For this week’s journal entry, I want to discuss some curriculum changes that I plan to make in the OB course that I teach. This spring, I taught OB to sophomore nursing students in the undergraduate program over 7 weeks (2 hour class twice per week). I had a total of 75 students who were divided into two sections, and my faculty evaluations from these students were excellent.
This summer, I taught OB to the second degree students in an accelerated program over 4 days (8 hour classes). I had 22 students, and my faculty evaluations for this group were poor. The content and teaching methods for both groups of students were exactly the same, and I am frustrated that my evaluations are so drastically different.
The students that I teach in the spring and summer are totally different. The average age for the sophomore students is 19 years old. However, the students in the accelerated program already have a baccalaureate degree in another discipline and vary in age. For both group of students, I use a variety of teaching methods, for example, lecture, questions/answers, and case studies. There is information that I do not have time to teach in class (common discomforts of pregnancy and maternal-child nutrition), and I have created case studies on the discussion board and online quizzes in WEB CT.
This year, I am up for my 3 year review for tenure, and I need to explain my student evaluations to the department for my faculty evaluation. I believe one reason that I received poor evaluations from the accelerated students is because the material was taught in 8 hour classes over a 4 day period. Some of the students told me that they stopped paying attention because they could no longer absorb the information. I am unable to change how the course is delivered over 4 days so I decided to focus on my teaching methods.
This summer, I took Feminist Pedagogy with Dr. Grassley, and she told me that when she taught OB, she used a lot of videos to teach the content. This is one change that I plan to use in the course. For example, instead of lecturing about the stages of labor, I plan to show a short video about this content, and follow it with a case study. One of my personal goals for this course is to review the literature to find some teaching strategies for adult learners in an accelerated second degree program.
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It's not your fault. You can't offer a high quality educational experience for a two credit course in four days. The human brain focuses well for about 20 minutes an then begins to wander off. ANy more than 45 minutes and mental function plummets. The scheduling is the problem and you cannot ethically be held responsible for those evaluations. Don't be afraid to say that either. It takes a very experienced educator who has taught the class a number of times to pull off something like that.
You can help improve the situation though and become that person that I referenced in the last sentence. For one thing, you'll have to move far away from content and focus instead almost entirely on concepts (in which some limited content will be included as exemplars). The idea is to teach concepts that can be generalized and applied to novel situations. If you took a course with Jane Grassley recently, you probably read Courage to Teach (Palmer, 1997 or 1998), which discusses this idea to some extent. If not, check it out. It's an easy book to read that isn't too academic but makes some good points.
Also, ditch your textbook (I'm assuming it's big) and get a short one. Find a smaller book that hits the highlights and expect the entire book to read prior to their setting foot in class. Focus solely on differences between Med-Surg and OB, if possible, or find some other anchor to use from which to differentiate OB (this is one of the problems with teaching OB before MS). Get students moving around and doing lots of different types of stuff. Try dividing every hour up into lecture (<20 minutes), activity, and discussion. Your methods sound good, so don't ditch them, just experiment with different arrangement. If you can identify four themes (1 per day) that are subsumed under one larger theme (the four-day week), use those in a semi-Ausubelian style to build that one major theme.
Good luck with the 3 year review. Remember this going into the meeting: You're a nurse who is soon to receive a doctoral degree and is willing to work for the peanuts that educational institutions pay. You're a valuable commodity, and everyone in the room with you knows it. :)
I'm not sure if you were looking for suggestions, but I hope they prove helpful for you. Keep in mind that they are only general suggestions. You know your students best, but consider these ideas as you revise your course.
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