Assessing Learners for Effective Educational Interventions

Discussion Week 2: Learner Assessment

The educational process is much like the nursing process.  Nurses know that they will assess their patients, plan their care, implement their care and then evaluate the outcomes of their care.  At some point, you have most likely written a care plan, so you are armed with many of the tools needed to plan an educational experience. The first part of a teaching episode is assessment of your learners.  Learner assessment helps you plan your teaching so it is targeted toward the needs of your learners.  For example, you would teach a six-year-old child differently than a 14-year old adolescent or a geriatric client. Age is just one assessment you might make, but there are many more.

1. Find two scholarly articles from the library that discuss the area of learner assessment you chose in the choice poll.  The articles can be from any database, so use the educational and psychological databases in addition to the usual nursing databases.
2. In separate paragraphs, briefly summarize both of your chosen articles and discuss why assessing this component of a learner is important for teaching.
3. Relate the information from the studies you found to teaching that you have delivered, experienced, or have observed.  For example, perhaps you have taught a patient whose primary language is not English, or have taught a pediatric patient.
4. Please respond to colleagues who covered assessment topics different from your own.

Please select your topic in the choice poll found in the week 2 tab.

• Age/Developmental stage
• Gender
• Literacy  
• Culture or Religion
• Language (non English speakers)
• Sensory impairment (vision, hearing)
• Mobility impairment (hand/arm strength)
• Cognitive impairment (dementia, autism)
• Motivation
• Present knowledge base

Respond to 2 or more postings of your colleagues, addressing such things as:

• Do you agree with the concepts expressed?
• Is there something that needs clarification?
• Can you support what your colleague posted?
• Challenge your colleague to a different view or deeper insight.