Nursing Education Concept By Marilyn Oerman
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Marilyn Oerman s Nurse
Dr Marilyn Oermann received her undergraduate degree in nursing from Pennsylvania State University, a master's degree in nursing from the University of Pittsburgh, and a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in curriculum and instruction.
Dr Marilyn Oermann is a Professor in the College of
Nursing, Wayne State University, Detroit , Michigan.
She is author/coauthor of 10 nursing education books and more than 150 articles in nursing and health care journals. Her current books are Writing for Publication in Nursing.
Evaluation and Testing in Nursing Education, and
Clinical Teaching Strategies in Nursing Education. Evaluation and Testing in
Nursing Education received an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year
Award and a Best Books of the Year Award.
Dr Oermann has written extensively on educational outcomes,
teaching and evaluation in nursing education, and using the Internet to teach
consumers about quality care. She is the Editor of the Annual Review of Nursing
Education and Journal of Nursing Care Quality, and a Fellow of the American
Academy of Nursing.
Achievements In Education
Dr Oermann is well known and regarded for her presentations and writings on curriculum, instruction, and evaluation in nursing education. Her story is one of a career dedicated to scholarship in nursing education.
She has
influenced many students of nursing education over the years, through her
formal courses and continuing education programs, as well as through her many
publications in the area of nursing education.
Early Interest In Teaching
She became interested in teaching when she was doing clinical teaching at the University of Pittsburgh. That was her first position and was back in the days when you could get a master's in nursing education.
When she was a practicing nurse, she did a lot of patient teaching and worked with students on the unit. Teaching seemed like something she would be good at.
Journey to Teaching
She earned a master's in nursing education and a minor in medical-surgical nursing. She had a lot of courses in nursing education and back then, people were very well prepared in these programs.
They were long master's programs; instead of the clinical specialty focus, the focus was nursing education. She went on and earned a doctorate in curriculum and evaluation. At that time there were very few nursing programs at the doctoral level.
While at the University of Pittsburgh in her doctoral program, the University had just been funded for a center for research on learning and instruction. So instead of this being a typical education program that focused on pedagogy, it focused on research.
The program had a strong thread of scholarship. Your role as an
educator was as a scholar doing research.
First Time As a Teacher
Between her master's and her doctorate she taught 1 year, replacing Sister Rosemary Donley, who left Pitt and went to Catholic University. That was a good experience. She taught at the baccalaureate level and also one master's level course.
She found that she was actually very good at lecturing. Back then we
did all lecturing. She was well organized and liked lecturing. She had a good style
of teaching and wanted to teach. However, she did not want to teach in a diploma
or technical program.
After her doctorate, se went to Wayne State. Dorothy Reilly was there. She was kind of the guru of nursing education. She had written a lot of books. She had very good mentoring.
Mentoring For Teaching
She was mentored early in her teaching career by people who were experts in teaching at the University of Pittsburgh. They had a nursing education program and a cadre of faculty, many of whom were prepared as teachers.
Sr. Rosemary was one of her first mentors. She and Sr. Mary Albert Kramer coordinated the nursing education program and were prepared in evaluation and testing.
When she moved to Wayne State , she worked with Dorothy Reilly who had done a lot of writing and ran a continuing education department. She also taught the nursing education courses. Again, that program was a master's level nursing education program. All three of these nursing educators were my mentors.
Evolution As A Teacher
Her evolution as a teacher has come from experience and from doing a lot of writing. When her do a lot of writing and a lot of reading, she ask questions about what other people are doing.
Her teaching evolved when she had a new course to teach and worked on the research needed to carry it through. She would go to the research in another field and say, “Now here is new research; how can we use that in nursing?” This is the basis for a lot of books and articles she write now.
Feeling Comfortable As A Teacher
She felt comfortable after about 2 years into her doctoral program. She had already had her master's in nursing education and had some experience as an educator. In addition she worked with a mentor where the preparation was put in place.
Challenges She Faced
Teaching inadequately prepared students is a challenge. That goes across all settings and all courses.She see it today, not in terms of nursing education, but in lack of preparation to do the thinking that is needed to be a scholar and in the lack of preparation in writing.
In her early career, there was the challenge of balancing clinical teaching, classroom teaching, service, publishing, and research in the academic role. She think people still have that problem today.
Accepting Teaching Moments
In one of her courses Madeleine Leininger was a guest lecturer and her responsibility was to talk about cultural aspects of teaching. She brought the wrong notes. What she covered had nothing to do with teaching, and thestudents kept looking at me.
Nevertheless, Madeleine did a great job sharing her expertise. About 2 years after that, her was giving a guest lecture and had the wrong notes and the wrong slides. She just turned off the projector and did it by heart.
Rewarding Aspects Of Teaching
The last 10-15 years have been most rewarding. In the 1980s universities started to close nursing education programs.
At Wayne State, when they voted to close the program, the Dean told me. "If you want to prepare for nursing education, then do something." Instead of saying, “We voted and you're out,” she in turn said, “Whatever you want to do, go ahead.” The University at that time had started giving a post-master's certificate.
She went to the Provost and discussed a post master's certificate in nursing education. She told me to write a proposal, which was approved. The program started in 1989. By 1995, the market was saturated and basically everyone in metropolitan Detroit had taken these courses.She then decided to shift to web based courses.
No one had ever done a web based course at Wayne State. The Dean gave her release time and hired an instructional designer. She did each course gradually semester by semester.
Now since 1997, can take the nursing education courses once a month on a Saturday face to face. or as a web based course completely online. Last year, she found that students do not really want to take the course online if they live in the local area. They want to be present with the teacher, sit for coffee, and talk about educational issues.
Last year she started offering both versions at one time. She tell the students, if you want face-to-face and cannot come one of the Saturdays, you can go to the on line version. This has been a really good idea. She have full enrollment and a waiting list in every course.
She have a Navy nurse in Japan, a student from Vancouver, and a student from Arizona. She could probably get more international students, but it takes time to do the marketing and she do not have the time. I think this has been a rewarding period.
Least Rewarding Aspects Of Teaching
In the 1980s when she was working part time and trying to develop a
career as a part time faculty, she found it was nearly impossible. She found that
people are not very supportive of faculty who are not full time.
Maintaining Excellence As A Teacher
She have maintained her excellence through writing, speaking, and finding new ideas in other fields. She have tried out new approaches like the web-based and the post-master's programs. These activities have contributed to my excellence as a teacher.
Advice For New Teachers
New teachers need to be prepared educationally for their role. They should not take a job unless they will be provided with faculty development. We set teachers up for failure by hiring them for courses when they have no experience in teaching.
For example, they have to give a lecture and they have never given a lecture. New teachers should learn to say no. new teachers should allow time in their role for scholarship because otherwise it will be the kiss of death when it comes time for getting tenure.
She encouraged new faculty to get involved in faculty development, to take a course, or a workshop. Eventually, she would like to take the post-master's courses and package them into modules for faculty development.
In the course she teach on clinical teaching there is one class on assessing a clinical agency before you take students, one module on how to work with staff, and a couple of classes on clinical evaluations.
These could be offered online for faculty development. Online courses are the wave of the future for faculty development. They can be taken in one's own time because they are self-paced.
Give your opinion if have any.