Instructors Learn to Help Students Apply Principles

Abstract

A CONTINUING PROBLEM in professional edu cation is that of planning the program in such a way that the fullest possible advantage can be taken of what has been learned previously, and particularly what students began to learn in their general educa tion. The solution to this problem would appear to lie, in part, in a careful examination of programs of professional education Such examination could include the identification of opportunities to maxi mize the relationship between general education and professional education. A major purpose of this study has been to analyze the experiences of two college instructors who endeavored to become in creasingly skillful in helping student nurses learn to apply concepts from sociology and psychology in clinical work. This task is essentially one of curriculum revi sion It is generally well-known that any at tempt to improve a curriculum involves going through some general steps of a rational approach. These steps involve: 1) determining objectives, 2) selec tion and organization of learning experiences, and 3) planning for evaluation For people inexperienc ed in curriculum work, it is often difficult to carry out this logical approach. Relatively little has been done to follow closely the activities of those who try systematically to carry out these procedures. This study has attempted to provide a detailed account of what actually happened over a period of time to two instructors engaged in a particular project of cur riculum improvement. The study thus w a s a case study of a project, with particular reference to two instructors who became deeply involved in it0