Aaaagh!!! I want to run screaming from the room and pull my hair out!

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Students come to us when they are failing or near failing, tears and frustration. They can't understand what is wrong. Maybe they have "test-taking problems". You probe and can find no disabilities, tutor them on test-taking skills and reading questions carefully... no results. Still bottom feeding.

But when you really pin them down and start asking about their study methods and the time they spend... you find out they are doing EVERYTHING except studying and learning the material! They read. They analyze. They practice the questions at the end of chapters. They get in study groups and talk about the material. But they commit NOTHING to memory.

Every da*n time! When they finally get religion (usually when they are repeating the course) they start studying and start pulling down solid B's.

Are you guys following this line of research? http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2011/110120KarpickeScience.html) . The data is very convincing. Basically endorses encouraging students to actively memorize and shows that at the end of the day those that do "practice retrieval" do significantly better on analysis and synthesis of knowledge than do those who did "elaborative" learning.

Once the students are sufficiently motivated (like after they fail the course the first time) I can show them how to commit the material to memory. Their performance in almost all measures improves.

Has anyone developed a remediation course using these methods? What do you do to get your students off the bottom?

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Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.

This research is fascinating. Thank you for sharing :)

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

I believe there are several factors at work here. Students have to be motivated, externally or internally, to succeed. Motivation leads to focusing on the topic. Some students are more intent on learning the tasks of nursing rather than the critical thinking. Studying is a form of critical thinking - determining what to study and how. This research you cited shows promise. Think back to grade school - there is only one way to learn how to multiply numbers. You have to memorize the tables. (well, most of us did at least). So it all connects. If we can convince students to memorize, self-test and test one another in study groups then maybe they will understand that the tasks of nursing will take care of themselves.

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There is too much information for nursing students to memorize. There must be a balance of teaching concepts with content, this should be the goal of nursing education. Getting faculty to change their teaching practices continues to be a problem in many schools of nursing. Students need to take responsibility for their learning, it is our job to facilitate this process. If students are doing "everything" but studying, they need to held accountable-if that means getting the boot from school or repeating a semester, so be it.

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I must say, that our school, from leadership on down is all about helping students succeed. We have open skills labs (6 hrs a day, 3 days/week) that all of us sign up to cover. The reason I posted this query is that we are trying to establish an "open tutoring lab" (dorky name... needs something that's more pithy). Faculty members will similarly sign up to cover the posted hours. Obviously, however, we are not all masters of all the material. So, this lab will be about study methods... and the faculty members will be coaches.

Has anyone tried this or done anything like it? Did the weak students attend (voluntarily)? I would love to have ideas and suggestions.

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Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

Sometimes the weak students won't admit to being weak, or don't want to be perceived as weak.

Our level III instructor came to me about the poor drug calc skills her students have (since I teach med calc :eek:). Turns out that was the semester I had someone cover while I was on sabatical. So I offered a review session, out of well over 30 students from two levels, 9 signed up and only 5 showed up. Of those 5 several were getting ready to graduate, and didn't really have problems, just wanted the extra study time.

I'd keep careful track of the numbers of the open lab times, to see if it is really useful (efficient use of your time) or not.

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