Tomorrow starts my second week in the nursing program. The reading assignments havent been too much since the first week basically went over the syllabi and everything. So far I have read all the assigned readings, which hasnt been much like I said. Just one chapter in Foundations, three chapters in Assessment, and my other nursing class had no readings for the first week.
My foundations teacher stressed that the faculty doesnt expect us to read our nursing books like theyre magazines and encouraged us to skim and just read all of the info in the little side boxes, etc. My problem is that I feel like if I dont read the entire chapter I'll miss out on important info. I know some people are really good skimmers, but Ive never done it before so I feel uncomfortable with even trying it. But I also feel like if I keep reading the entire chapters, I'll fall behind because I wont be able to keep up (extremely time consuming as you all know). Im also summarizing the chapters as I read which is quadrupling the time it takes for me to read the chapters.
So my question is how many of you skim and how many of you actually read? And for those of you who skim, do you feel like you miss out on important points in the text or no?
Long post: you have my permission to just skim the first words of each paragraph, LOL!!!
I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned different learning styles, although at least one person did say "we all learn differently" which is true (edit: now two... anurseatlast posted while I was writing this!) Many people who go into teaching are verbal-non-visual learners. Simplified, that means they learned best by reading. Many MANY people who go into nursing are kinesthetic learners who learn best by DOING. A few are auditory learners. All of this is complicated for some of you by life experience which includes a lot of TV (compared to someone like me who was raised in the 50s), perhaps some video games, and the Internet, all of which encourage a short attention span and a lack of patience (gotta-havit-right-now syndrome). Finally, and especially for today's teens who are just beginning their post-HS education, there is a lack of familiarity with note-taking time-savers like cursive writing.
I wondered why my students didn't take notes in class, but instead asked repeatedly for me to provide class notes, copies of my PowerPoints, exam study guides, etc. When I realized that the vast majority of them ONLY either print or type - excuse me, "keyboard", used as a verb - it makes more sense. My mom (b. 1917) did not understand how I could handle university without knowing shorthand. I'm amazed these young folks can handle it without cursive (speedy) writing.
I wouldn't presume to determine a learning style just from notes here, but most of you have probably had such an assessment by now (Google VARK if you haven't). It's true that you need to know the material in the book, and you aren't going to be spoon fed everything in lectures. This is deliberate - when you're in nursing you're going to get surprises and "pop quizzes from life" every day, and you need to be ready.
The read-three-times advice usually goes something like this: (1) Skim the chapter, noting themes and paying close attention to all diagrams and their legends. Make notes about what seems totally new to you.
(2) Read for content, usually word for word. Make notes of anything you don't understand. Outline the chapter. Visual-non-verbal learners (learn from graphics/illustrations) and kinesthetic learners should consider making a concept map of any major ideas, fact-trees, processes or procedures covered in the chapter. Auditory learners may find it helps to read the chapter out loud, possibly even recording yourself then listening to the recording. Kinesthetic learners can use clay to build models of concepts. Ideally all this is done before the lecture, but you can tell that some of these ideas take tons of time, so time management is crucial and you have to focus on what works for you and what is important vs. trivial.
(3) After the lecture, read the chapter again with your lecture notes available, to review what the professor thought was important enough to emphasize.
One last thought: it's possible to misunderstand a professor's instructions. On a larger scale, human communication is fraught with misunderstandings. I'm sure (or at least I hope) that part of your education includes training in communication, and how to be an active listener as well as use the spoken confirmation technique. (Person 1 says something. Person 2 repeats it. Person 1 confirms. In the most stilted version, the one that saved my marriage, ha-ha, Person 2's line goes something like this: "I hear you saying such-and-such," without added interpretation or really much of any response. After you're sure you heard what you thought you heard, then you can go on to respond. It takes forever sometimes. It really seems silly. It really DID save my marriage!)
In this case the prof may have been talking only about the first chapters, or only about Foundations, or only about their own teaching style. I'm fairly certain that you will all run into situations during your education where two different instructors tell you two different answers to the same question. An open, curious mind, good researching skills, and flexibility really helps!!
Sorry for the length of this - I'm an educator at heart. I want to see everyone not only make it through their education, but to excel at it, as well as in their profession.
Since you are an educator and want your students to to well, I'm sure you won't mind me providing a little more insight to your note-taking observation.
I was an older student during nursing school, so I didn't fall into the category of only printing or keyboarding. However, I needed to be able to focus on the instructor as much as possible without any other distractions, and that included not having to write copious amounts of notes. If I had to write much, I wasn't able to follow the lecture and missed information. So having copies of powerpoints or outlines of lectures in front of me during class greatly reduced the need to write so much. I was able to jot key information next to the pre-printed material and still follow the lecture well enough to grasp the intended concepts. Doing this greatly enhanced my ability to learn the material as well as aided in my time management.
I always read my texts, although with that much to get through, I was reading at a speed WAY beyond my comfort level. The books that ATI provided us accompanied me everywhere, as they gave a really good synopsis of the text material. I was an A/B student and passed my NCLEX-RN at 75 questions. Since I took the NCLEX, I've been rereading all my Pharm and Med-Surg texts, at a somewhat more relaxed pace.j
Take the hint that your prof gave - use the power points and skim, skim, skim! I graduated about a year ago and I have to say, most of the more successful students in my program used study guides and barely read. I spent way too much time reading because I didn't want to miss anything. I did OK but I wish I had figured out how to skim earlier.
When i was in nursing school I always read the entire chapter. However, I wish I had just been a skimmer, or better yet, read more effectively. When learning about specific disease processes I'd suggest only reading the patho, nursing interventions, etc. I kept all of my nursing books and refer to them often as a practicing nurse.
WOW, I am very surprised someone can KNOW the material by just skimming through the book. The fact that is coming from an instructor amazes me even more. I just finished AAS in nursing last semester, and from my experience we had to know every single page of that chapter in the textbook including all of the boxes, because sometimes prof would question from them. I do not know how anyone can get through nursing school just by skimming through the textbooks.
Our instructor told us the same thing. Their reason was because there is sooo much to read that you can get really bogged down with excess information, when you have only so much time to get it all in your head.
This is what I did. I went to Amazon or half.com and looked for and bought the used copies of books like "Straight A's in Pharmacology, for instance or Medical-Surgical nursing made incredibly easy. There are quite a few titles available and the nice thing is that they are broken down with the really important stuff you need right away in the margins and the more in depth stuff in the main part of the text. They also come with a cd that is loaded with NCLEX style questions to test your knowledge. I think I studied more from these then I did from the textbooks ( I graduated in Dec. 2009).
The other thing is get yourself into a study group. Then before a test like the week before get together a couple of times and a couple of days before and kick around questions. Sometimes seeing things from another person's perspective will set the info. in your mind alot better.
Last thing record the lectures and listen back on them when you are in the car going to school or work or whatever. you would be surprised how many things the instructors will pull out of the lectures that you zoned out and missed., and go over the notes the Professors give you, most of the questions will come out of there.
GM2RN
1,850 Posts
Since you are an educator and want your students to to well, I'm sure you won't mind me providing a little more insight to your note-taking observation.
I was an older student during nursing school, so I didn't fall into the category of only printing or keyboarding. However, I needed to be able to focus on the instructor as much as possible without any other distractions, and that included not having to write copious amounts of notes. If I had to write much, I wasn't able to follow the lecture and missed information. So having copies of powerpoints or outlines of lectures in front of me during class greatly reduced the need to write so much. I was able to jot key information next to the pre-printed material and still follow the lecture well enough to grasp the intended concepts. Doing this greatly enhanced my ability to learn the material as well as aided in my time management.
Thanks for listening.