Monday, July 19, 2010

Bye bye Bangladesh and a little bit of Cassandra



Well, I’ve had my final Nurs 221 class this afternoon. I gotta say, it’s been an incredible journey. Sigh (I literally paused to take a breath there). Let’s see where to begin.

When I arrived in Bangladesh 7 weeks ago, I was nervous, intimidated, excited, apprehensive, shy (a bit), and slightly lost (literally and figuratively). When I was told that I was to teach the diagnostic lab tests of the Nurs 221 Med-Surg course, I was so scared. And worried. I looked over the content from previous years and realized that it was WAY beyond my own knowledge but was told that I could restructure the course with a nursing twist. The previous course was formulated by Med lab students who know so much about their lab tests (rightfully so). So I had a vision (partly poached from PBL). I went through the previous course material and wrote down what labs had been covered. Then I assigned the students 2 labs to look up each. They needed to put into a template (which I created for them) what the test was for, what the normal ranges were, what high/low levels indicated, and what some nursing interventions would be for high/low levels.

I gave them their assignment and gave them a week to do it (not unreasonable by BCIT standards). When I received them, I was so excited that everyone submitted their assignments on time! That sounds kind of ridiculous, right? It was kind of a personal accomplishment, that I was firm with them and said that I had very little tolerance for late submissions (it’s true and I hold myself to that as a student). Then I began editing them all and thought to myself, ‘Why am I doing this? Is it MY responsibility that THEIR assignments should have been done properly and coherently?’ Partly yes and mostly no. Because I began holding Saturday lab classes (they had a shortage of RNs to supervise them in the hospital), I was able to have them review and edit each other’s work. I was so thrilled when they came up to me and said, “Ma’am, I don’t understand what they are trying to say here.” Cuz I smiled, looked at them and said, ‘Me neither. You get to look up the answers now!’ They were able to feel the joys of being a teacher (and nurses are teachers), the trials and tribulations of delivering material in a comprehensive manner! This is learning! Don’t worry, I’m not ALL mean, I could tell when they were getting restless and we played some trivia games, too! Competitive students exist EVERYWHERE – I’m not the only one who gets riled up in trivia, fyi – clinical and PBL members, thank you very much. Haha.

So they all looked over each others work and made suggestions and corrected them. But, they all submitted them to me (so I have the master copy) but I’d already made comments on the document, so I sent it to them to look over. One thing you should know about me is that I don’t like giving answers out freely. I make you work for them. So my comments were more guiding questions to lead them to the answers. I will admit, this was slightly mean of me. I kept the master copy with all the answers and only gave suggestions and hints on the document for them to look over at home. It’s ‘mean’ but it will also help them in the long run. The more exposure you get to this information, the better it will stick! I don’t pride myself in being tough, ok? That’s not me. If you know me well (which you hopefully do by now), you will know that being mean to students makes me feel just as bad, if not worse, ok! But I only do it out of love and hope that they will learn!

They all presented, in partners, on 2 patho conditions and the labs you would use to diagnose this condition. That happened last week. I was pretty upset after last week. The amount of disrespect I saw from them towards each other really made me angry. I told them from the start that I have a zero tolerance policy on talking through someone else’s presentation and instead, they passed notes. And some were reading through their own presentation notes. I had to threaten them that I would be taking off marks before it got better. I ended up taking off 2 marks for note-passing and 5 marks for reading through your own notes. The presentation was out of 40. Slightly harsh, but I gave you fair warning before it started. I should not be wasting valuable class time teaching about the importance of respect. That is not part of adult learning. I definitely was pretty affected by that and felt like I was being tested. Like, how far can we push the new teacher before there are consequences? I do realize that students all over the world do that, but I guess it was the fact that my blatant ‘I can see you passing notes’ looks were ignored and continuance that bothered me.

This week, I wanted to incorporate PBL techniques – group process and discussion. We sat in a circle and discussed what the potential problems would be for every patho condition. From this, they need to submit a careplan around the potential problems and what their nursing interventions would be. I think I was unclear about this part of the assignment and I will have to make note of it when I leave all my documents behind. I’ll have to wait to see how the careplans are before I finalize my comments and make suggestions for the future Nurs 221 instructor.

You have no idea how excited I was to see them talk things out. I sat there with a smile I tried my best to conceal. I failed miserably. Lol. I was just so excited and proud of them! We talked about tactfully delivering alternate viewpoints, the importance of NOT being defensive, and solving differences EARLY instead of late (preventing passive aggressive behavior). Visions of PBL came screaming back at me. Now, I’m ready to leave (except not really because I feel like I haven’t had enough time here) and head to Taiwan to see my aunt, HK to see my grams and family, and finally, home to my momma bear, sister, and the Henster, and of course beloved friends.

These blogs are merely the tip of the iceberg. This journey has been so incredible and I feel like I’ve learned so much and given a part of myself away.
Luckily, ‘myself’ is like the liver – it regenerates. I’ll be back as a whole by the time I’m home in beautiful Vancouver, BC.

Love you all, see you in no time!
Cass Ma

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