Chapter 1 Summary Of Reading Assignment

EXPERT TO NOVICE JOURNAL

Summary of Reading Assignment The assigned readings for this portion of this journal largely focus on the preparation required for a clinical nurse to begin a journey from expert nurse to a novice nurse educator. While there are notable differences in the role requirements between academic nurse educators and clinical nurse educators, the qualities and attributes remain relatively constant. Different paths lead nurses to become educators, but commonly educators are introduced to an educational role through preceptor experiences that awaken interest in teaching the art and science of nursing to other nurses. Precepting, mentoring, and teaching in a clinical setting often offers nurses interested in entering the

Having had little exposure to academic nurse educators over the past 25 years, I had not actually given much thought to the attributes necessary for academic nurse educators. Furthermore, my view of hospital based nurse educators had always been based on the observations I had made over the years of clinical educators I had encountered during my hospital based career. According to Hunt (2013), attributes of clinical instructors include clinical expertise, critical thinking skills, strong interpersonal skills, knowledge of adult learning theories, previous teaching experience, willingness to learn, proficiency in technology, and an ability to think innovatively and creatively. At this point in my career, I have not rejected the possibility of a educator role in academia, but my current focus is as a hospital based educator. As I enter the role of nurse educator in a clinical setting, I find that I do not possess all these attributes, but can clearly see that this program of instruction has very systematically made me aware of the attribute and characteristics that I will need to pay close attention. For example, I have not been known to have strong interpersonal communication skills and now recognize that it is very important that I pay close attention to not only build better interpersonal communication skills, but

I have discovered a deep fascination with the benefits of developing reflective practices both for myself, and for those within my circle of responsibility as a nurse educator. Because of this journaling experience, I have come up with a few goals as this course progresses and as I begin my new role as nurse educator. The first goal is to investigate and discover my preceptor’s views of reflective practices and find out if she has her students in the nurse residency program utilize reflective journaling. Additionally, I would like to develop a reflective journaling rubric for the new graduate nurses that will be starting in March in the emergency department. Finally, I have decided to incorporate journaling into my daily practice at work. Since beginning in the new role as educator, I have appraised great value in the use of reflective practices to help me to maintain and bolster my enthusiasm and joy of learning and