If you could have an open, honest conversation with your instructors - classroom or clinical - what would you tell them?
Here are some of my thoughts:
(1) Please make sure that everyone follows the rules & meets the requirements. Don't let some students make their own rules while others work hard to follow every rule! While there are always times exceptions must be made, the same students are often getting away with everything.
(2) When I'm in clinical, please just step back and allow me to do the task I have to do. Don't stand over me asking questions! Your running commentary makes me a nervous wreck. As long as I'm doing my task correctly, observe & keep quiet! If I do something wrong, please explain it to me and give my another opportunity to prove I can do it.
(3) Please ensure your expectations are clear and consistant. If you want our weekly patient write-ups a certain way, tell us. Don't change your expectations without letting us know!! The bottom line: most of us are working so hard to do our best! Tell us what you want from us and we'll always do what we can to get a good grade!
"I am paying a lot of money for YOU to teach this class, so can you please stop telling us that you don't know and asking if any of the other students know??" (and this isn't a teaching technique, This instructor really doesn't know!)
"We have 9 chapters to read this week, 2 exams, and a skills test, plus clinicals and our 8-page care plan to do, and you want me to sleep WHEN exactly? And now you want me to read something else!?"
If you don't know how in the h*ll are we suppose to know.....
:yeah::yeah:
"how many of your students are now nurses who cannot even pronounce TAMPONADE????" (wasnt even close... she said tampione") My teacher has no idea how to spell half of the diseases and proceedures she explains. She calls edema edamame and hundreds of other examples. She mixes up empyema and emphysema so much that half of us ended up getting them mixed up on our test.
"If you don't want to be our teacher, don't like teaching, hate the pay, whatever then QUIT so we can get a teacher who will actually give us more than the bare minimum" I've learned more in the past two weeks from the RN I precepted with than I have from her in two months. She doesnt do anything but read the slides for lecture. No examples, no interactive demos, nothing. Sometimes she even just tells everyone to go home early and finish the reading ourselves. sigh
"I have kids, so please realize that i KNOW they get sick. HOWEVER, if YOU are going to miss class, could you kindly have SOMEONE put a note on the door or something?? Even better, how about send out an email so at least some of us have a chance of realizing you won't be in class so we can save ourselves the hour-long drive?
Why is is that if your kid is sick, you can miss teaching us, but if our kid is sick, that's not OK. We aren't "allowed" to miss class unless we are dead."
#1 You have job requirements just like everyone else- fullfil them. No, your powerpoints can't be up after class- isn't that how you told your boss you were going to teach us? No, you can't return case studies after the test, isn't that how you told your boss you were going to prepare us for the test? We all have a hard life, put your big girl panties on and deal with it. And, if this is your first year teaching- we don't care, this is our first year of going to nursing school, and we still have requirements to fulfill.
#2 Refer back to number one.
#3 To all of you awesome teachers who teach and are prepared for class, THANK YOU:bowingpur
"could you please stop talking so fast?! How the hell am I supposed to type/write everything when your words are starting to flow together and make no sense! oh and also, please try to know what you are going to say BEFORE the lecture because when you keep correcting yourself it is very confusing!!"
To my first semester lab instructor: Thank you so much for all of the information you threw at us that seemed so annoying at the time. I remember so much from fundamentals because of you.
To my first semester health communications professor: Just because YOU forgot about a meeting our group set up with you does not mean you can try to turn each of against each other by playing "she said, he said." I expect that behavior from some of my immature classmates, not my masters-carrying-fifty-year-old-pediatric-nursing-instructor. gr.
Recording five hours of new lecture material on audio and emailing it out to students right before spring break because "we don't have time for spring break in the nursing program" just stinks. Even nursing students need and deserve spring break.
Thanks for staying after with me to see what exactly it was that I wasnt getting on the test- most people would say, knowing the info is your problem...study more or a different way. You took the time to help me learn the right way to study, and didnt accuse me of not studying, and even saying I know you know the info- Thankyou. I feel like i can be myself when Im in your clinical group. You present yourself to be a human, not some one whos intimidating because your "higher up." I will miss that atmosphere, in which I am learning so much becaue I am not to afraid to ask. Oh and thanks for noticing that the other instructors arent like that, and givin me advise on how to deal with them- and helping me even though i am not your student at the time, so i can learn it.
#2 i learn alot from you, and i dont find you intimidating in class- but honestly, I am so afraid of cinical with you. And i hope I am wrong about that!- but i feel like I need to study to know everythign and why for clinical, on top of studying for school-Im stressed just thinking about it. But like i said, hopefully youll prove me wrong- I just want the opportunity to be a student- I havent had 30 years experience like you and one day i hope to be as great of a nurse as you are- but nobody is perfect on their first try-it takes practice!
And I dont think its fair that you chose to keep certain people after you said you fail, your out- that rule should apply to everyone, not just the people youve bonded with. A few great people that wouldve made great nurses got dropped, which is fine, but if they had been given the opportunity to bond, would you have kept them?
and mostly, for me, I want to thankyou for teaching me things, cauingme some stress- so I know i cant fool around- and for pushing me to do my best!
1. Don't listen to the whiners in the class. Your tests are good, they are challenging, and you have to study a lot to get a good grade. I wish you would just tell the students who beg for extra credit and for questions to be thrown off the test, "NO!"
2. Stop trying to scare us. Learning to do all this stuff is scary enough, would you just support, encourage, and teach instead of scaring us about everything we could do wrong and how terrible it will be when we do screw up?
3. Please put things into context when you can. The stories you tell us help us remember everything 20X more than the flashcards we have been religiously studying. We know you have some good stories from being a nurse, share them! We will learn from them!
:yeah:
LoneWolfRN2010
87 Posts
I would like to say....
"I am paying a lot of money for YOU to teach this class, so can you please stop telling us that you don't know and asking if any of the other students know??" (and this isn't a teaching technique, This instructor really doesn't know!)
"We have 9 chapters to read this week, 2 exams, and a skills test, plus clinicals and our 8-page care plan to do, and you want me to sleep WHEN exactly? And now you want me to read something else!?"