The teaching and learning process

¶ … teach graduate students how to critically think while working in their medical careers. After all, studies have determined that many graduates "make statistically significant gains in critical thinking" (Drennan, 2010, p. 423), therefore, the art of critically thinking should not be that difficult to teach. It was quickly determined, however, that developing such a skill is a task that demands much both from the students, and from the instructors. Hence, a different idea took shape, one in which the task at hand is to teach graduate nursing students the capabilities and machinations of the Personal Digital Assistant and how it relates to the nursing field. To accomplish this task, a needs assessment will be conducted to ensure that the task is a) needed, and b) the factors necessary for successful completion of the objective.

Instructional goal

The instructional goal is to provide the learner outcomes that would use a very basic teaching concept to assist the learners in improving their skills using a PDA. The students will achieve this goal by acquiring the skills necessary to use the PDA in and out of the classroom environment.

Demographics

The participant demographics is a mixture of both younger and older nursing students, the vast majority of which are female. The students' ages range from 20 through about 40-years of age. The students hail from a variety of backgrounds and cultures; including, Americans, Middle Easterners, and Latinos. All the students are seeking Master's degrees and most work as either full or part-time nurses. The setting is primarily a classroom, although on-hand training takes place at a nearby hospital.

Requisite Skills

The requisite skills needed by the students who are attending this course are quite minimal. The must have a working knowledge of a Patient Electronic Record (PER) and they must have the capability to learn how to use a PDA. If the students are capable of these particular skills, then they will likely be capable of learning what it takes to create a PER on the PDA.

Learner Needs

The information being gathered is qualitative and quantitative in nature. The assessment will seek to determine how nursing students perceive the use of technology (specifically PDA's) while at the same time measuring how effective the students are in its use. The tools needed to collect the information will include a questionnaire and by observing a focus group comprised of nursing students. The focus group observer will track the number of positive and negative responses by participants as they are introduced to the intricacies of a PDA. Both of these methods for gathering information have been effectively used in the past to gather mixed research data and have proven useful in that regard.