From Ha-Ha to a-HA!: Using Humor to Transform Nursing Education by Shirley K. Trout, PhD, MEd

Posted by kbuxman on October 19, 2009

Probing Questions: The perfect set-up for a nursing joke!

Okay, readers. This month I’m taking a risk. I need to discuss the concept of “probing questions,” but I’ve been around enough nurses to know that simply saying the word, “probing,” sends them off into a world OB nurses and proctologists know all-too-well.

Perhaps I could use the alternative term, “open-ended.” But, again, my mind jumps directly to hospital gowns.

This is a real distraction!

Jumping in, regardless: 6 core questions

Despite my mental images of all the take-offs you’re going to launch into, it is important that nurse educators be fully armed with one of the most powerful teaching techniques available for the professional educator: asking probing (open-ended/higher-order) questions. By open-ended, we mean those that cannot be answered by a simple yes/no or fact. By higher-order, we mean those that cause a person to think and to integrate a range of information in the generation of their answer.

Have you ever stopped to realize that there are only six types of questions? That’s right. SIX. Regardless of what words a person chooses to use, you are always trying to get at six questions or some derivative of them: who, when, where, what, how and why. (more…)

Tags: higher order questions, nursing education, nursing humor, open ended questions, probing questions, shirley K trout, Shirley Trout, types of questions

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From Ha-Ha to a-HA!: Using Humor to Transform Nursing Education by Shirley K. Trout, PhD, MEd

Posted by kbuxman on August 24, 2009

Use Humor to Capture Their Attention

Another late-August. Another group of students rolling into our colleges and universities, so full of excitement, fear and curiosity about their respective futures. Some are away from home for the first time. Some have made it through that transition and are involved in their next one – whatever that may be. Yet others may be stepping back into the college scene, having never attended or re-entering the world of “studenthood,” as adults.

Regardless of their personal status, as their professor, you get the opportunity to orient them to your course, its requirements and technologies, and your way of teaching. And of course (you tend to assume), every student is taking your course because of their burning interest in the material and in the great reputation you have built as the professor to learn from.

Hmmmmm. I wonder if that’s really what they’re thinking the first day of class? (more…)