The path to becoming a nurse certainly requires enthusiasm and dedication. Strolling through forums, there are many challenges put on the shoulders of wannabe-nurses. But one outstanding issue is the sheer incredible amount of knowledge and the difficulty to retain that.
By far, the complaints about the unmanageable mass of information is not only led by students. About 20 years ago, ‘conceptual curriculum’ became a buzzword which is haunting the halls of all kinds of Nursing colleges and universities and would have the potential to heal content saturation. The downside is: Curriculum redesign is quite a political activity meaning that it takes much time until the result is visible. Most Nursing students won’t see the outcome of these processes. So Nurse educators themselves have taken the lead to critically reflect their own teaching style. One of them is Prof. Rhonda Lawes who has 30 years of experience as a Registered Nurse and has left the hospital units to teach the next generation of nurses.
And she wants to do it right. Prof. Lawes is very much interested in research and findings of educational studies. One book she found very impressive is Make it stick in which the authors have transferred findings from cognitive psychology to educational theory. Interestingly, the findings have suggested that effective learning strategies are often counterintuitive to what students actually felt to be the most effective (and often the most boring). Rhonda Lawes uses the suggested research-based strategies of Make it stick to help students supercharge their study skills, improve their test-taking abilities, and maintain a life outside of nursing school. She has set her goals to teach Nursing students how to increase their level of understanding of the toughest concepts in Pharmacology and Med Surg.
Video: The Nurse‘s Role in Pharmacology
Both subjects are at the very heart of every Nursing curriculum. The necessity to learn and teach so much content in such a limited time often results in dry presentations and information overload. Following Prof. Lawes video course on Pharmacology for Nurses, however, is the exact opposite. It is this unique combination of factual knowledge mixed with memorizable pictures and spiced with humor, honesty, and activation that has resulted in a steadily growing number of exciting user reviews. Students are frequently asked to test themselves, thereby practicing retrieval, and Prof. Lawes does not get tired of repeating the most important concepts that students as test-takers, but also as future nurses, need to remember for the rest of their professional lives. Prof. Lawes says about herself that she is “passionate about teaching nursing students” and this passion can be felt at every minute of her learning material.
First feedback of Lecturio users:
Read more about the concept of Make it stick in our two-part interview with author Peter Brown:
Learn How to “Make It Stick” with Renown Author Peter Brown (Part 1)
Learn How to “Make It Stick” with Renown Author Peter Brown (Part 2)