Charlotte,
How much time do students have to prepare? Do you provide guidelines in the form of a handout? Yes, students need to be adequately prepared before clinical practice. If not, the lack of preparation also reflects on the school.
Ron Hansen, Ed. D.
When my students are required to demonstrate competency, they have to practice and prepare for lab. This preparation for lab easily translates to being ready for clinical practice. If I didn't require lab competency before they went to clinical, they would be very ill-equipped to perform well at their clinical sites. I like the fact that they can apply the skills learned and deomnstrated in lab to real-world patient situations.
lori,
This level of detail helps the student to have a clear understanding of the competencies they need to demonstrate and the level of ability expected.
Dr. Ron Hansen
Randall,
Good words of wisdom. An instructor I recently worked with advised graduates to "go out there and sign your work with excellence".
Dr. Ron Hansen
Competency based istruction is crucial for my teaching. I am a clinical dental hygiene instructor and evaluating and instructing the students in patient hands on care is exactly what my job entails. We have to use competencies to make sure the students have adequately perfected the clinical skills we are teaching. Our students first begin the clinical instruction by practicing on tooth typedonts then progress to working on each other. Once they master certain criteria they move to "real" patients in our dental hygiene clinic. When a student feels that they have mastered a certain skill or instrument they have to demonstrate that skill by a competency evaluation that is very detained and precise.
Lori
Explaining to the students what has been required of myself when first being hired at a company. A company hiring agent probably has an idea of what you should be able to do when completing training at a technical school either due to previous employees, or maybe even a trip to the school, or perhaps training he has received from the same type of school. If a recent graduate cannot meet these expectations, he could lose faith in the employee and possibly the school. I tell the students that they are only here for a short time, so they need to learn all that they can to carry to a prospective employer. Second chances are sometimes hard to come by.
Marilyn,
You might want to respond by posting in the Student Assessment thread. How do you assure the students gain the competencies after you have given a demonstration?
Dr. Ron Hansen
Competencies guide me in demos for my classes They are set and acceptable standards set by leaders in the industry. It is very important that students see concretely through my work, what they can do....
Manuel,
Absolutely. Do students readily see the how their actions impact people's lives? If not, what changes have you made to address this?
Dr. Ron Hansen
