Critical thinking in nursing students

A response to the Misunderstood Activity
created by Sara Craig (@Sara Craig)

Number of views: 142

Empowered Educator

Teaching Module

Learning Activity #1

By: Sara Craig scraig@sl.on.ca

 

I teach in the first year of the Practical Nurse program at St. Lawrence College. We discuss critical thinking. Students often have an unclear idea about what critical thinking is. My first picture shows someone following a straight paved road, with no other road intersecting, boring landscape and an arrow going one way. This is the opposite of critical thinking, simply following an obvious path.

 

The analogy I use to discuss critical thinking is how people pick out clothes to wear each day.

I ask students to tell me how they decided what to wear today. The group comes up with various answers, for example:

  • Depends on what is clean
  • Weather
  • Where I am going
  • Season
  • What’s fashionable
  • If they will get dirty, etc.

 

Then we use an idea cloud to discuss the different options and how everyone weighs different options their own way. Then I use an example in nursing with an idea cloud to highlight the similarities.

 

Weather                                         Activities of the day                   Culture/religion            Finances

Whatever is clean         Stylish

 

Reflection:

Analogies are very useful for teaching content and I should embed more in my classes. When I think back to my own learning experiences, often the ones I remember best are when an analogy was used or if a person was sharing their own personal experiences.