Teaching Observation In The Classroom

Introduction I originally thought that finding time to complete the teaching observation would be easy. However, between bad weather, sick children, and a rotating work schedule three hours away from home I was not able to complete my teaching observation until February 12th, 2018. I observed a NURS 236, Fundamentals of Nursing, class that started at 2:30pm and was instructed by Dr. Riah Hoffman. The class was broken down into two sections that day, the first half of the class was instruction on glucometers and blood sugars and the second half of the class was a test review for an upcoming exam. Observing an instructor in a teaching session is much different than being a student in class. I was able to have an outside perspective on

It is vastly important for the professor to be approachable, available and provide prompt feedback to students (Sweet and Broadbent, 2016). During my teaching observation I was able to observe open communication between the professor and the students. I noted that the most interaction between the instructor and the students occurred during the second half of my observation which included a test review. The students had a vested interest in the test review section of the class and I saw that they took more notes and were more attentive during this section than they were during the actual instruction. An interpersonal relationship strength was that Dr. Hoffman was able to address many of the student’s questions at this time and they seemed satisfied with her answers. She referred to the PowerPoints, the notes, the book, and the lecture to answer questions about test material so that the students would have one solid answer to base their studying on. The environment of the class changed a little bit when the class changed from the lecture to the review. I feel like a weakness of the interaction between the students and the professor was that the students did not engage during the lecture and Dr. Hoffman had to pull answers to the PowerPoint questions from them. There were points during the class when Dr. Hoffman had to specifically ask students to answer

This teaching observation was exponentially important for me as someone who wants to be a professor someday because I can see some of the things that seemed to work and some of the things that did not. I was able to see the students, not as people who I need to ingrain information into but as people who are trying to learn. I was also able to observe the professor as a professional and not someone who was trying to teach me something. The observation allowed me to focus on how the class was being instructed and how the students and professor interacted instead of focusing on teaching or learning. Nursing education is always changing, and curricula will need to move away from the strict testing requirements to more flexible learning environments in order to help students become nurses who can make clinical decisions in technologically advanced healthcare settings (Billings,