A touch of reality

The Acharya Smt Nagarathnamma College of Nursing organised ‘Innovative Teaching and Evaluative Measures’, an international workshop in collaboration with Global Research Nurses Network, The University of Oxford, UK, recently.

The one-day workshop touched upon topics like mind mapping, problem-based learning, simulation, objectively-structured clinical evaluation (OSCE), and was followed by workshops on how to prepare research tools and standardise them through validity measures. Students of more than six nursing colleges in the City participated in this workshop.

The session on mind mapping opened the window for students and helped them be creative. Shama, a student, explained, “As many as 37 students enroled in this session. Following a brief outline, participants were given clues and provided with materials like charts, sketch pens, colour pens, post-its, rulers and erasers. They had to create an imaginary mind map using these clues. Later, the participants displayed these mind maps and explained the concept. It really helped enhance our critical thinking.”

Participants were then given a case scenario along with sources like books, journals and laptops. This was aimed to give them a hands-on training in the use of innovative methods of teaching.

Saju, another student, said, “The OSCE tested a student’s clinical skills. There were seven stations like history taking, physical examination, oral care, eye care, skin care and question and answer session. All the sessions happened in a professional set-up, more like that of a hospital. All of us were very excited to be part of this session.”

For the nursing students, the workshop proved to be a boon. Lissy John of MS Ramaiah Hospital cited anecdotal records and critical incident reports, while giving examples of real-life incidents that happen on a daily basis in hospitals.

She also taught the participants how to write medical reports.

Nira, another student, said, “I felt like I was working in a hospital and was not just a student. Such workshops are highly engaging and teach us a lot about the profession.”
Apart from the workshop, there was a poster-making competition too. Baptist Hospital College of Nursing bagged the first prize in this round.

At the end of the workshop, the test results indicated that there was 40 per cent enhancement in the participants’ performances.

The workshop concluded with the distribution of prizes and certificates.