Techniques to Promote Reflective Practice and Empowered Learning.

Abstract

Health care environments are fraught with fast-paced critical demands and ethical dilemmas requiring decisive nursing actions. Nurse educators must prepare nursing students to practice skills, behaviors, and attitudes needed to meet the challenges of health care demands. Evidence-based, innovative, multimodal techniques with novice and seasoned nurses were incorporated into a baccalaureate (BSN) completion program (RN to-BSN) to deepen learning, complex skill building, reflective practice, teamwork, and compassion toward the experiences of others. Principles of popular education for engaged teaching-learning were applied. Nursing students experience equitable access to content through co-constructing knowledge with four creative techniques. Four creative techniques include poem reading aloud to facilitate connectedness; mindfulness to cultivate self-awareness; string figure activities to demonstrate indigenous knowledge and teamwork; and cartooning difficult subject matter. Nursing school curricula can promote a milieu for developing organizational skills to manage simultaneous priorities, practice reflectively, and develop empathy and the authenticity that effective nursing requires. [J Nurs Educ. 2018;57(2):115-120.].