A Reflection in Learning

McKenna, L., & Newton, J. M. (2009). After the graduate year: a phenomenological exploration of how new nurses develop their knowledge and skill over the first 18 months following graduation. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 25. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxymu.wrlc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=57a243af-c0d3-4f81-addf-041456493db3%40sessionmgr4005&vid=1&hid=4206

Throughout the first year Foundations of Professional Nursing course, I have gained a better understand of nursing and thus my perspective on nursing has developed a lot. After learning about the different concepts and theories in nursing, I feel I understand the role of nurses better and it makes me proud to have chosen this profession. I have also realized how much the concepts I have learned this year have affected my perspective on nursing and have helped shape me into becoming a nurse. In addition, I have been able to develop a personal philosophy of nursing. This paper will examine the importance of a sub- concept to nursing, reflect on my personal journey of development as a nurse and discuss my personal philosophy of nursing.

Nursing can be a demanding career, but the benefits far much outweigh the challenges. Most importantly, it’s the rewards it offers by allowing an opportunity to make a difference in another person’s life through the provision of care when they need it. Just as Patricia Benner theorized in her book “Novice to Expert,” nursing encompasses both educational knowledge and extensive clinical experience acquired throughout one’s career. This far, I continue to acquire knowledge and clinical knowhow which will promote proper and efficient care to patients. Since I began practicing one year ago in a long-term healthcare facility, I have interacted with patients, families, physicians and other members of the healthcare team to coordinate patient’s care which has enabled me to gain confidence in myself. While I cannot deny that it was difficult to transition from a student to a licensed nurse, I learnt to overcome these challenges and focus on my strengths. Practicing as an LPN has provided a platform to learn and gain experience even though the duties and responsibilities are limited by the scope of practice.

This reflective account is going to discuss quality systems in nursing practice in relation to service development and improvement. Quality systems in healthcare are the systems that are put in place by the management to monitor, assess and improve the quality of care provided (Wagner, 2001). Examples of such kind of activities are the implementation of guidelines, continuing education, internal audits, patient feedback questionnaires, nursing dashboards and the use of care plans to assess patients' needs. In this reflective account, I am going to use Driscoll's (2007) reflective model reflect on incidences that I have observed in practice. To protect the identity of the patients and the department I worked on I am going to adhere to Nursing

Several learning theories have been put forward to explain how learning takes place in individuals. These theories have found application in formal learning situations including nursing education and training. In addition, a number of nursing theories also aim to prescribe the best approach to the practice of nursing in a professional environment. Of the learning theories, social learning theory takes into account the role of the environment in shaping responses through interaction with the cognitive skills of the learner. The deliberate nursing process theory also emphasizes the importance of responding to the real environment instead of blindly implementing prescribed solutions. This essay discusses the responses of a nursing professional in a real-life learning environment in the light of social learning theory and deliberative nursing process theory.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a learning theory with application to a teaching-learning situation in health care. This paper will focus on the social learning theory and its application to the teaching-learning process in nursing. I will explore a clear definition of the theory and present the main concepts. Lastly, I will apply my knowledge of the social learning theory by describing how I use it in a health care setting when educating student nurses during senior practicum.

I once heard someone say, “Find something you love to do and you’ll always be successful.” If you want to be in a field where you are continually learning, nursing would be the top pick. This paper will reflect the journey I have taken from Registered Nurse (RN) to Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) with the incorporation of my learning objectives from my clinical course.

As the demand for nursing education grows and with the rapidly advancing roles of nursing, educators need to stay up-to-date. “Theory-based practice provides nurses with a perspective” (Parker, 2006, p.28). With the comprehension and use of educational theories, nursing educators can support student knowledge and development into practice. These theories are outlines of cohesive concepts and principals that describe, explain, or predict how people learn. Every one learns differently and as an educator you need to be familiarized with and open to the use of one or more combinations of theories to successfully teach adult learners in this ever changing health care system. This paper will highlight the use of Constructivist Learning Theory and its application to nursing practice.

In today’s world, it is essential to incorporate nursing theory into practice. Patricia Benner, through her work, “has provided essential understanding of how knowledge and skills are acquired and directly applied to nursing practice, education, research and administration” (Altmann, 2007, p. 114). According to Benner’s model of skill acquisition, “the nurse passes through five stages of career development, novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient and expert” (English, 1993, p.387). Specific patterns of behavior, thinking, and performance is present in each stage. The most experience is associated with the expert nurse and the least experience is possessed by the novice nurse (Benjamin, 2007). This model is based on ascending level of proficiency and the key concepts of this model are: competence, skill attainment, experience, clinical knowledge and practical knowledge

In this paper, I will be discussing my learning experiences during term three. In order to classify and expand on what I have learned, I will be writing about two roles I have assumed as a student nurse, how I have developed those roles through theory and practice, how my thinking has changed, and what I would like to change in the future.

Reflection is thought by linking recent experience with early experience to promote more complex and interrelated mental models or patterns. The thinking involves looking for commonalities, differences, and interrelations beyond their superficial elements. The goal is to develop higher order thinking skills.

In today’s competitive world, people are expected to be highly effective and efficient. They need specific skills and knowledge for their education or work purposes. This has enforced various skill enhancement programs proposed by fraternity all over the world.

Reflective learning and journal writing is essential and should be inculcated in learning at different levels of education. It is useful to students and professionals from various works of lives as it helps in identifying learning areas where students lack that needs to be addressed. Reflective learning helps students adopt learning strategies that would enhance active learning. It contributes to making sense of knowledge acquired, how it can be improved and applied in our daily lives. Reflection is used in decision-making at work (problem-solving or giving feedback as a manager), in the course of doing business, in schools before turning in an assignment and personally (inward reflection of negative attitude that

As I was reading “The Lesson” there was nothing that hit me to the core or something that really stood out to the point where I was in disbelief. Something that came close to it was probably the fact that Harper and Thanh left to a an island for the wedding of a friend when their baby from a surrogate could possibly come at any moment. This was a little surprising because it felt like they weren’t too excited about their baby that they are expecting even though they are paying for it, so it was surprising that they left. It is like paying for college, but not going to class. If I was in their shoes, I would not go anywhere, I just wouldn’t be able to do that, I would be too excited and anxious waiting for my son. Then the fact that the

Being a teacher requires you to be able to alter your lesson plans at any moment. There were several times during this lesson that I had to do this. The biggest in the moment change that I needed to make was when we were modeling how to give the survey. Mrs. Vavra had told me practicing giving the survey to our class should take ten to fifteen minutes. It ended up taking the whole math class time. I felt that I had to make sure that the students knew what they were doing before I sent them to survey another class. Since that took the whole time that pushed back the lesson that we were supposed to also learn that day. Using the interactive lessons that go along with the textbook they used worked well for the students to get some hands on practice with the material before I sent them back to their seats to work on their worksheet. Getting the students up and moving also helps. I also tried to vary my instructional strategies. I did this by having the students to view a PowerPoint with the information on it and watch a video to explain the graph instead of me teaching it. The review PowerPoint that I had planned didn’t work out the way that it had on my computer when I previewed it again before class. The PowerPoint was supposed to be all interactive and done on the Smartboard. Instead I had to sit on the computer and go from slide to slide. This caused me to have to be away from the students and not being able to make sure that they were staying on task. I was required to