Hey there!
It’s time for the final pillar in the series Pillars of Active Learning. If you are just joining, you can catch up here:
- Re-imagining the lecture as the final frontier
- Challenges of active learning
- Use story
- Incorporate physical objects
- Using micro-lessons
- Entice curiosity
- Incorporate movement
- Build Community
- Establish Group Work Best Practices
We have already reached the final pillar in this series. Thank you for coming along for the ride for the past nine weeks! I hope you have enjoyed this format. While I am brainstorming my next series idea, I am also thinking about new newsletter formats. Keep an eye on your inbox next week for the final wrap-up and a quiz survey.
The final active learning pillar is Utilize Debriefing.
What is a debrief?
Debriefing is a reflective, engaging, and informative dialog between students and educators. It helps the educator understand what the learner is thinking and guides or corrects the learners' thinking, often solidifying or affirming their thoughts.
While questions like “What went right?” and “Where can you make improvements?” are beneficial and easy to use, a debrief becomes more meaningful when we use our teaching expertise to develop intentional questions. Using effective practices in a debriefing session can improve clinical judgment, decision-making, and patient care outcomes.
What makes an effective debrief?
A debriefing session is helpful in almost every classroom and clinical experience. Here are a few highlights that can be included in every session:
⏳ Time for self-reflection - Before debriefing as a group, allow time for individual thoughts
🌱Patience through multiple attempts—In a culture where “overnight success” is celebrated, this is just not how nursing practice works. After each student attempt at a skill or thinking pattern, provide a debrief, suggest improvements, and encourage another attempt with kindness and empathy for the new learner.
🧠 Psychological safety - The instructor is responsible for creating an ideal environment for reflection. Try a statement like the one below to establish basic guidelines, calm the fear of judgment, and clearly define the purpose.
- “Our purpose with this session is to improve our patient care. We will not blame others for errors in thinking or action. Everyone is encouraged to participate, and this discussion will remain confidential.”
Educator characteristics in debriefing
The Socrative Method is an excellent starting point when considering how to approach debriefing as an educator. Below is a short synopsis of an article I enjoyed on Socrative questioning from Dinkins & Cangelosi (2019):
🔦 Learning is guided by the teacher and desired by the student - Socrates believed that we cannot give a learner knowledge and understanding as we would give them a meal or clothing. Instead, students must find and assess answers and solutions for themselves. We are simply guiding them thoughtfully.
🪰Continued questioning—Socrates described himself as a “gadfly,” an annoying bug that continuously and relentlessly annoys with little bites. But he intended the bites to “awaken,” not hurt, and saw the persistent questioning as a tool for self-reflection, not to shut down or discourage learners.
🤰Bringing ideas to life—Finally, Socrates thought of himself as a midwife, helping to bring ideas to light through the efforts of the learner. I like this analogy because the midwife never intends to harm or discourage but rather confronts obstacles with care and compassion.
Ideas for debriefing
Here are three quick ideas for effective debriefing sessions:
🎁Exam wrapper—The time immediately following an exam is a golden period for reflection. The pressure of the test has lifted, the learner’s bandwidth has opened up with a reprieve from studying, and students are eager to improve. An Exam Wrapper is a short reflection exercise completed after students receive a grade for an exam. With open-ended questions, it asks direct questions about how students prepared and performed. You can get a template for an exam wrapper worksheet HERE.
📝Note comparison—It is not a secret that students struggle with taking notes, especially in an active learning classroom. It can be difficult for them to give notes structure or to be able to summarize and highlight the most critical pieces. After a lecture section, ask students to compare notes with their neighbors and to share the most important highlights. During their discussion, I will walk around the room and choose a few examples to show on the document camera. It can be helpful to see how others structure their learning, such as if they use headings or colors or how they determine what is most important.
⛳Practice questions—Just like learning to cook or swing a golf club, answering NCLEX-style questions is a skill that needs to be practiced. Choose a handful of practice questions to review the content you covered in class that day. Or, have a few post-conference questions that correlate with the patient population you see on the unit. Go through the questions step-by-step, discussing eliminating responses, searching for keywords, and developing an approach to alternative format questions.
With all the teaching tools and techniques available, it can be easy to overlook the power of reflective dialogue between a teacher and student. No matter how you structure your debriefing sessions, remember this important part— it is a dialogue, a conversation, a back-and-forth discussion between instructor and student that is genuinely beneficial.
Amazing work! You now have eight strong foundational pillars to use in your active learning classroom! I'll see you back here next week to wrap up this series and move ahead to the next.
Stable clinical patients? Slow day in the lab?
Use the clinical decision cards to give students the opportunity to think through an abnormal clinical scenario. Two decks available - OB and Medical/Surgical!
References
Bradley, C.S., Johnson, B.K., Dreifuerst, K.T. (Dec, 2020). Debriefing: A place for enthusiastic teaching at learning at a distance. Clinical Simulation In Nursing, 49, 16-18.
Dinkins, C.S. & Cangelosi, P.R. (2019). Putting Socrates back in Socratic method: Theory-based debriefing in the nursing classroom. Nursing Philosophy, 20(2).
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