Self-reflection to Improve Teaching – Discussion replies. Please reply to the two discussions and please put the references separately under the replies. Vanessa – Self-reflection is critical for nurse educators to improve their teaching, service, and scholarship roles. According to Grech (2021), reflection is the consideration of specific practice experiences through a different lens with the help of literature in order to develop and improve future practice. As an academic nurse educator, it is essential to continuously reflect on my experience to improve my teaching strategies and enhance my students’ learning. Healthcare is an ever-changing field, and therefore, self-reflection is important to keep abreast of the many changes and help learners provide quality and safe nursing care (Grech, 2021). According to Billings and Halstead (2020), self-reflection can be carried on several aspects of nurse educator roles like teaching content, teaching processes, and the teaching premise. I intend to take the role of an academic nurse educator to teach undergraduate nursing students. To ensure I am a self-reflective educator, I will allocate time on my schedule for self-reflection geared towards professional growth. I will self-reflect on my teaching content, teaching processes, and the teaching premise. The use of reflective journals and effective reflective models such as Gibb’s reflective cycle will be beneficial to improve my teaching role (Lubbe & Botha, 2020). These reflective practices provide an opportunity to analyze teaching experiences and identify knowledge gaps that can be bridged to improve future practice as an academic nurse educator. The collection of data through questionnaires is critical to obtain feedback from peers, students, and the institution’s leadership. The obtained feedback will facilitate my self-reflection through the identification of weaknesses pointed out by the responders. An objective analysis of the feedback data will be essential to achieve meaningful self-reflection and improve my areas of weakness. Previously working as a nurse in the medical-surgical unit, I effectively incorporated self-reflection in my practice and achieved improved patient health outcomes. I ineffectively used self-reflection on a few occasions due to subjective analysis of my experiences. At the beginning of my career, I did not respond well to constructive criticism. This is because I took the feedback provided as a personal attack blinding the assistance I was receiving. Over time, this has changed as I received guidance from my mentors, enabling me to improve my practice’s quality. I currently have no concerns because I respond well to constructive criticism. Two important actions to ensure my vitality and growth are reading new research articles and attending nursing educators’ conferences regularly. These two actions critically expand my knowledge base on current effective teaching practices that promote student learning (Mohn-Brown, 2017). Incorporation of this new knowledge in my role as an academic nurse educator through self-reflection will enable me to improve my teaching practice. Tiffany – As a nurse, I have always enjoyed precepting new nurses, and orienting new hires to whichever unit I was currently working. In the near future, I intend to take on the role of a clinical nurse educator, providing staff development in a patient care facility. If I am to consider myself a self-reflective clinical educator, I must recognize this process as a requirement in order to advance in my role as an educator. Grech (2021) offered a guide consisting of several questions nurse educators should ask themselves to guide self-reflection: Why should I teach the way I teach? Where should I start? What should I focus on? When is the best time to self-reflect? Who can help me in self-reflection? How can I take this to the next level? I would use this guide to assist in self-reflection. In self-reflection, I must also consider whether or not the content I am teaching and/or providing is adequate, up to date, and meet the needs of staff; I must consider how the staff members learn; I should also consider if and how my contribution meets the overall goals of the institution. To obtain feedback, I would give staff nurses and my colleagues the opportunity to give constructive criticism and feedback periodically. I could also measure the effectiveness of my teaching by responses from new nurses as well as other staff nurses. I would need to formulate a plan for the areas needing improvement. When working towards improvement, one concern I have is if I will have adequate resources to meet the needs of staff. Constructive criticism is needed for growth and can be challenging when on the receiving end. I appreciate constructive criticism, although I admit it is not always easy to be the person being critiqued. When soliciting feedback from staff and colleagues, I would prefer they remain anonymous. I recognize that as a clinical nurse educator and staff developer, I must be the subject matter expert in many cases. This means that I would need to stay abreast of updates and changes regarding the organization as well as in nursing practice. Continuing education for myself would be one way I ensure growth as an educator. I want to ensure that nurses under my leadership are confident and equipped with the knowledge and skills to provide high quality patient care. Another way I would ensure my vitality and growth as an educator throughout my career is to participate in mentorship. Being that it will be a new role for me, I would like to have an experienced mentor in this particular role; someone with whom I discuss concerns and is able to provide constructive feedback. In turn, as I gain experience, I would also like to mentor new nurse educators as they enter into the same role.
