Teaching a medical assitant and cna courses

noreenl · Jun 1, 2012

I taught CNA classes for 2 years and I can honestly say that with very few exceptions, i thoroughly enjoyed everyminute of it!!! I lewarned how to deal with multiple language and education levels and that if a student is passionate and willing to learn they can overcome tremendous odds to get a good job with decent pay, health insurance (for some it was the first time they accomplished these 2 things on their own!) watching those men and women put together their graduation dinner and then receive their diploma from the school but handed to them by me(this part was important to me) with such a sense of accomplishment on their faces just made me so proud! i still receive letters at holidays from a few and thte thank you letters i have in abox at home really pick me up on some of the rougher periods in school nursing!!

As far as what io recommend, listen to your students on the first day. do some kind of "ice breaker" excercise that encourages the students to talk about themselves for at least 3 minutes. this does a few things for you: it allows you to see their level of their English language skills as well as assessing accents. this way you know who may need extra help with those long complex medical terms! it also lets you know if your class is composed of working folks especially if you are teaching evening classes. the reason this is important is if you notice that you have some "nappers" you may need to change to a "skills lab" right then and there to keep them awake and interested. I know what its like to try to work and go to school and some of these folks are single parents as well. i always had 2 different plans for each session 1 skills based and 1 class based. You have got to be flexible. Also, as far as the language skills, with one evening group i had to get really creative. most of my students in this particular class were bilingual spanish and i found that during the breaks 2 of the students were meeting with about 6 others and were going over the day's lesson in Spanish. the class then met as a group and we decided together for this class all skills were spoken in Spanish until the "Physical " part was understaood then they had to speak to the resident in English. one of my "coteacher/students" took it upon herself to take my "skill script" and write it all out in Spanish. this class worked particularly hard and all 17 of them passed the state exaam the firstr time and 2 of them were hired by our clinical site!

you must be organized or you can get behind very quickly. each state has a mandatory curriculum and a set numberof hours to learn all this material and skills and its your job to make sure you cover everything. Every student plans on passing all state written and skills exams the first time. as long as you do your best and DOCUMENT ON YOUR LESSON PLAN FOR EACH CLASSwhat was covered and you cover everything the rest is on the student.