NRS 428 Teaching Experience Reflection

Sample Answer

Community health education is a valuable way of responding to health challenges and improving knowledge of particular health topics among community members. Community health nurses should seek to create an environment that promotes lifelong learning in the community. The purpose of this paper is to describe my community teaching experience and highlight my observations.

Summary of the Community Teaching Plan

The health promotion topic for the community teaching plan was the Importance of Handwashing using soap and water to control pathogens and the spread of infections. The health education session was held at the Community Health Centre. The target audience was community members aged ten years and above. The program targeted a minimum of 30 community members and a maximum of 50 people from within the neighborhood.

The Social development model was the learning theory of choice, and it helped ensure that the audience comprehended the program content. Using the Social development model fostered social interactions as it focused on communication gaps between the audience and the nurse educator.
The objectives of the teaching plan were for the audience to;

1. Describe the significance of grouping the cases when one needs to wash hands.
2. Illustrate the effective handwashing technique.
3. State at least five diseases that can be prevented through proper handwashing.
4. Explain at least five benefits of effective handwashing practices.

Epidemiological Rationale for Topic

The epidemiological rationale for choosing this topic was because of the benefits of handwashing in reducing the transmission of multiple contact diseases. Handwashing has been proven to lower the risk of diarrheal diseases by about 50%. Consequently, the CDC recommends handwashing with soap and water for 15-25 seconds. This helps prevent
1 in every 3 diarrheal diseases and 1 in every 5 respiratory infections like flu and common cold (CDC, 2023).

Furthermore, an estimated 1.8 million children below five years die annually from diarrheal diseases and pneumonia. During the COVID-19 pandemic, handwashing was recommended as a primary measure to lower the transmission of the coronavirus (Alzyood et al., 2020).

Evaluation of Teaching Experience

The teaching experience was generally delightful and I enjoyed every moment of it. The great experience can be attributed to the audience’s eagerness to learn and their cooperation throughout the session. The audience asked lots of questions on handwashing which made the experience interesting, and they were also eager to answer questions from the educator and the members present. Another thing that made the experience amazing was the location used since there were no external disruptions like human movement or noise, which promoted a smooth learning session.

When preparing for the health education session, I learned that it is vital to set rules and communicate them at the beginning of the session to inform the audience of how to conduct themselves (Leblanc et al., 2022). Thus, I developed rules and conveyed them to the audience including having their phones off or on silent mode, raising their hands if they have a question or want to answer, respecting each other’s perspectives, and avoiding disrupting others when talking. Communicating these rules helped promote a smooth learning session.

Community Response to Teaching

The audience was pleased with the health education session and conveyed their appreciation for the program. They mentioned that they had learned the importance of using soap and water during handwashing, something that most ignored and used only plain water. They were surprised from learning that washing hands with plain water has minimal impact on eliminating germs from hands. Besides, the audience engaged me throughout the session by answering and asking relevant questions. At the end of the session, they thanked me for setting up the program and requested more health education sessions in the future.

Areas of Strength and Areas for Improvement

The areas of strength during the teaching session include developing SMART learning objectives which guided me on the content to deliver to the audience. Besides, I conducted a community assessment that helped me to understand the community’s needs and design the community teaching plan to meet them (Rayan-Gharra et al., 2022). Another strength was my excellent communication and listening skills, which were vital in promoting an effective learning session. Nonetheless, I identified areas that I should improve on in the selection of teaching strategies.

I need to design teaching strategies to meet the needs of people with different learning styles (Whitney, 2018). Besides, I should improve on time management. The estimated teaching time was 30-40 minutes but it took about 1.5 hours.

Conclusion

The community teaching experience was successful and the audience learned a lot on handwashing. The success can be attributed to adequate preparation and the audience’s eagerness to learn and cooperation. In future community teaching sessions, it will be important to consider the various learning styles and use teaching strategies that incorporate them.

References

• Alzyood, M., Jackson, D., Aveyard, H., & Brooke, J. (2020). COVID‐19 reinforces the importance of handwashing. Journal of clinical nursing, 29(15-16), 2760. DOI 10.1111/jocn.15313
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2023 May 4). Handwashing in Communities Clean Hands Save Lives.https //www.cdc.gov/handwashing/why-handwashing.html
• Leblanc, P., Occelli, P., Etienne, J., Rode, G., & Colin, C. (2022). Assessing the implementation of community-based learning in public health a mixed methods approach. BMC medical education, 22(1), 40. https //doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-03098-5
• Rayan-Gharra, N., Ofir-Gutler, M., & Spitzer, S. (2022). Shaping health conducting a community health needs assessment in culturally diverse peripheral population groups. International journal for equity in health, 21(1), 131. https //doi.org/10.1186/s12939-022-01735-z
• Whitney, S. (2018). Teaching and learning styles. Health promotion Health and wellness across the continuum.