New CNA Instructor Need Advice from CNA Instructors

conscientiousnurse · Mar 15, 2012

Hello everyone!,
i took the train the trainer last year, but i was not able to get a job teaching CNA until this march.I feel that i have forgotten most of the skills i learned in the TTT class, i will be starting in 2 weeks at a local community college. I am terrified and though i have read the CNA book i still feel unprepared on how to teach the class. can you please give me some advise on how you ran your class. I will be teaching lab and clinical portion of the CNA class. I want my class to run smoothly. one day is for 6hrs and the second day which is lab is for 8hrs. i feel that i may not have enough materials to stay the entire class time. Please help!

I haven't taught in a community college, but in a 3-week private CNA school. There is always more than enough to do to keep busy. It sounds like you're mostly concerned about lab, so this is how I do it.: We teach the skills that they'll be tested on for the state CNA certification. (If I had more time, I would also teach other skills like collecting specimens, colostomy care, and others which you probably have in your book). What we do is demonstrate several skills, perhaps 6 or so for a 6-hour class. I try not to take more than about half the class time for demonstrations, either by myself or by students if it's at a later stage in the class. Then, we divide students up into groups of about 3 students each (sometimes 2, sometimes 4). These students then rotate through skills stations to learn all the skills. One of the students acts as "teacher" by correcting fellow students, one is the patient (if necessary), and one is the student practicing the skill. Actually, teaching others is an excellent way for the students to learn the skills. I rotate around to stations, correcting mistakes and answering questions, or doing a quicker re-demonstration of skills as necessary. At the end, after they've cleaned up, I usually talk to them about common mistakes made. If they're about to have a break of a couple days from class, I often assign students to demo a skill to fellow students on their return to class. If they do well, I check them off on that skill even during their demo. Then, it takes several days to do skills testings before they go to clinicals. While they're skills testing, I have the others do their practicing at skills stations. I try to make sure they're all practicing skills at this time. If not, I do a pep talk telling everyone why it's so important to practice many times over, since it's so easy to fail to state skills test. I also have told them I'd give people an extra assignment if they were found idle. (Like having to write out verbatim, what the steps were for a skill).

lulu997RN · Mar 15, 2012

Thank you so much for the info! i appreciate it!