Infuriating Responses To Questions

[ADPIE10]

Are any of you frustrated when your instructor answers your question with a question?

[chaxanmom]

Im assuming more than anything else you just wanted to mention that you read The Republic since what we are discussing is NOT the Socratic method, not even close.

Doubtful considering it's required reading for many humanities courses and even high schools. And yes teaching through asking the student more questions is the Socratic method.

[chaxanmom]

lol. socrates, being a philospher, would certainly be interested in "what do you think" but i think that is the realm of education that that method is most appropriate

Nursing school isn't education? Hmm...

[chaxanmom]

Wow, projecting much? The requirement of critical thinking is not solely owned by the profession of nursing.

Are other professions as PMSy about it as nursing students??

You may want to go over projection again because what she did was attempt to explain to you why instructors do this.

[casi, ASN, RN]

It's the instructors way of making you put together what you know to come to an answer. When your in the field there won't always be someone there to answer your questions. You'll have to start putting things together yourself.

[AOx1]

As an instructor, when I am asked a question, I try to assess what the student already knows. This often requires further questions. Just as you would hopefully perform an assessment of a patient's knowledge level before beginning to teach them, I also do this with my students. Many times, they may not realize how much they know. For example, if a student wants to know what to do for a child having an asthma attack, I might assess their baseline level of knowledge on handling oxygenation problems in general, then try to help them find common denominators between something they do know, and something that is new to them.

I do this not because I am lazy or because I don't know. It is actually much easier just to give a quick answer than to guide a student in this manner. If they have no idea, I work with them to use resources, and try to "think out loud" so they can visualize my thought process.

The goal is to help them teach themselves when I am not around. I will not be there as they take NCLEX. I will not be there as they find their first coding patient as a practicing nurse. I do this so that they might develop confidence in their ability to find their own answers.

It is a bit oversimplified to state that all instructors are just lazy or stupid when they don't just answer directly. Certainly, some may just say "use your critical thinking" to get out of admitting they don't know, but I doubt if this is true in most cases.

I personally am not intimidated by saying "I don't know." It isn't reasonable that one person knows all the information present in the universe regarding nursing. I don't know it all, and I don't expect my students to, either. What I try to demonstrate in those times when I don't know is how I use resources. I will tell the student "I don't know, but let's find out the answer together."

[ADPIE10]

As an instructor, when I am asked a question, I try to assess what the student already knows. This often requires further questions...

Well thought out reply. Many people are reading too much into the question.

I really didn't mean Socratic level questions.

[ADPIE10]

It's the instructors way of making you put together what you know to come to an answer. When your in the field there won't always be someone there to answer your questions. You'll have to start putting things together yourself.

No, actually it's not. You're reading too much into the question. Maybe in the instances that YOU have experienced, this may be the case. But isn't it possible that in my question, it wasn't clinical, and simply administrative stuff?

Couldn't you give some of us the benefit of the doubt that we know the difference between inquiry and obfuscation?

[Tharem]

No, actually it's not. You're reading too much into the question. Maybe in the instances that YOU have experienced, this may be the case. But isn't it possible that in my question, it wasn't clinical, and simply administrative stuff?

Couldn't you give some of us the benefit of the doubt that we know the difference between inquiry and obfuscation?

I think the reason people are 'reading too much into the question' is because your original question was ridiculously vague. If you want accurate answers you have to ask accurate questions.

Expecting people to understand what you mean without actually saying what you mean is to be self-centered and intolerant. No wonder you're frustrated and "infuriated".

[Me, SN]

So many high horses! Look, your professors aren't here, so no butt kissing is necessary.

And sometimes people just don't get something. Sometimes if ONE little thing is answered or corrected, a whole bunch of light bulbs go off.

PFT! You can't always arrive at the right answer through critical thinking. Sometimes you need to know a fact as a foundation for future situations. Because what if you critically think and you get it wrong, only this time it's not on a test, it's on the floor during a code. They need a new name for critical thinking, because I've heard it so much it makes me want to vomit.

[justme1972]

I think it would be great if the NCLEX exam was a series of questions that we could answer with questions. I think that it would be a great way of allowing the test administrators to guess what we might know.

:urck:

[justme1972]

As students, you have a lot of information given to you to memorize. I have often found that when I give the answer, the student does not remember the information one week later. By asking questions, I am trying to help you figure it out yourself, understand what is going on, and truly understand the answer. You will remember it better. Nursing is not easy. The patients will not provide you with answers. They will give you clues and you need to figure out what is going on, as with the example given by the previous poster.

All of your accusations that the instructors don't know anything makes you sound like whining children, not the critical thinking professionals you are going to school to become.

I completely disagree with your philosophy.

To take a blanket approach like that, I'll be honest, is lazy of any educator.

Bottom line: They are getting PAID to do a job. I pay tuition in exchange for instruction and the school I choose claimed to have experts that could teach me how to be a nurse. They are not doing me a favor by showing up to class.

With very, very rare exception, all of the students, at least in my nursing program, are above average students. Like another poster said, if I ask a question in class, it's because I have read it, Googled it, researched it, and still don't have the answer.

If you have students in your class that are not at least trying to answer their own question, then by all means restrict your answering to THAT particular student, not to the entire class.

During my first semester, they threw a fit anytime anyone was 5 seconds late for class. The instructors only noticed on the very rare occasion that THEY showed up on time themselves. If I have to be on time, then I expect them to be on time.

Some instructors also have an excuse for every family emergency right down to a sick dog (yes, I had a clinical instructor call off 1/2 hour clinical day b/c she had to take her dog to the vet) as an excuse for not having an exam ready, handouts that were promised ready, etc.

Funny how when something happens in our lives, we get the "You need to get your priorities straight" speech.

I won't put every single instructor in that catagory. I just won't. There are people that bend over backwards to put together a quality class.

However, college instructors know full well that it's probably the only job in America that you can have...that no matter how badly you do at it, no matter how many complaints you get, the chances of you having to lift a finger to change it or lose your job is slim to none.

So yes, there are a few that take full advantage of that.

I have one that comes in frequently, walks to the front of the room, slams her books on the desk and says, "Everyone had better be quiet today b/c I'm just 'not in the mood' "

Well, I would like to throw back at her the same crap she throws back at her students: Leave your personal problems at home and pull on your big girl panties and deal with it.

Just b/c a student has a complaint DOES NOT mean it's automatically invalid or that "we don't understand".

We have expectations to...and should have every right to have those expectations met.

If teachers don't like answering questions...then it's the wrong profession for them.

[Tharem]

I completely disagree with your philosophy.

To take a blanket approach like that, I'll be honest, is lazy of any educator.

Bottom line: They are getting PAID to do a job. I pay tuition in exchange for instruction and the school I choose claimed to have experts that could teach me how to be a nurse. They are not doing me a favor by showing up to class.

With very, very rare exception, all of the students, at least in my nursing program, are above average students. Like another poster said, if I ask a question in class, it's because I have read it, Googled it, researched it, and still don't have the answer.

If you have students in your class that are not at least trying to answer their own question, then by all means restrict your answering to THAT particular student, not to the entire class.

During my first semester, they threw a fit anytime anyone was 5 seconds late for class. The instructors only noticed on the very rare occasion that THEY showed up on time themselves. If I have to be on time, then I expect them to be on time.

Some instructors also have an excuse for every family emergency right down to a sick dog (yes, I had a clinical instructor call off 1/2 hour clinical day b/c she had to take her dog to the vet) as an excuse for not having an exam ready, handouts that were promised ready, etc.

Funny how when something happens in our lives, we get the "You need to get your priorities straight" speech.

I won't put every single instructor in that catagory. I just won't. There are people that bend over backwards to put together a quality class.

However, college instructors know full well that it's probably the only job in America that you can have...that no matter how badly you do at it, no matter how many complaints you get, the chances of you having to lift a finger to change it or lose your job is slim to none.

So yes, there are a few that take full advantage of that.

I have one that comes in frequently, walks to the front of the room, slams her books on the desk and says, "Everyone had better be quiet today b/c I'm just 'not in the mood' "

Well, I would like to throw back at her the same crap she throws back at her students: Leave your personal problems at home and pull on your big girl panties and deal with it.

Just b/c a student has a complaint DOES NOT mean it's automatically invalid or that "we don't understand".

We have expectations to...and should have every right to have those expectations met.

If teachers don't like answering questions...then it's the wrong profession for them.

I agree that instructors shouldn't hold their students to professional standards if they don't live up to them themselves. There is a teacher at my school who was eventually removed from her teaching position because of all the complaints from students. I won't go into details but it was pretty bad. They were right, she was wrong, and eventually she got called on it.

There are bad teachers, that don't care about helping students, that aren't fair in giving or grading tests, that use their position to get away with poor attitudes or character defects because the students can't do anything about it. I agree, students shouldn't take that kind of behavior.

But that's an issue that isn't really being discussed in this thread, and really can't be determined by whether the teacher answers a question directly or with another question. That premise is flawed, because it depends on the question and either response might be appropriate depending on the circumstances.

That's why it's hard to tell what the h**l the original poster is talking about.