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Cognitive/concept mapping a teaching strategy for nursing

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cognitive/concept mapping a teaching strategy for nursing

Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: PO BoxAuckland ParkSouth Africa Keywords Critical thinking; concept-mapping; facilitation; teaching methods; nursing education Dates: This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. A review of the literature In This Original Research Article Open Access xxxxxxx Second heading coding: Unless nurse educators provide a learning environment that promotes understanding through interaction, students might only commit unassimilated information to their short-term memory through rote learning, and no meaningful learning will occur. The aim of this paper is to describe the utilisation of concept-mapping as a teaching method to facilitate critical thinking by students in nursing education. The description of the utilisation of concept-mapping is done from the theoretical framework of concept-mapping and critical thinking to provide the epistemological basis for concept-mapping Facione Based on the exploration and description of the theoretical frameworks, four steps to facilitate critical thinking were formulated through concept-mapping on the basis of the educational process: It is concluded that the utilisation of these steps will assist nurse educators to implement concept-mapping as a teaching method to facilitate critical thinking by student nurses in nursing education. Teaching artikel het ten doel om die aanwending van konsepkartering as 'n onderrigstrategie te beskryf, ten einde die kritiese denke van leerders in die verpleegkunde te fasiliteer. Die beskrywing van die aanwending van konsepkartering word vanuit die teoretiese raamwerke van konsepkartering en kritiese denke gedoen om die epistemologiese grondslag vir konsepkartering te voorsien Facione Gegrond op die verkenning en beskrywing van die teoretiese raamwerke, word vier fases vir die fasilitering van kritiese denke geformuleer deur middel van konsepkartering. Hierdie verkenning en beskrywing is gebaseer op die onderwysproses: Introduction Back to top Facilitating critical thinking remains a challenge faced by both nurse educators and student nurses, especially in the multi-modal and learner-centred approach to learning. The facilitation of critical thinking in teaching and learning requires a willingness and commitment to engage in the utilisation of the core cognitive critical thinking skills and the related affective dispositions. Infusing critical thinking skills into didactic activities requires the construction and reconstruction of meanings by students through actively seeking to integrate new knowledge with knowledge already existing in their cognitive structure. If students can link new information to their existing conceptual framework, they can construct new, meaningful interconnections so that their existing conceptions are transformed, enriched or revised and conceptual change occurs. Therefore, existing conceptions are transformed during knowledge construction, that is, construction of understanding Gravett Interaction, collaboration, cooperation, dialogue and discourse are key concepts in facilitating understanding of educational activities. Worldwide, the power and value of knowledge and new knowledge production are acknowledged. The interactive approaches compel the educational institutions to revisit their approaches to teaching, learning and assessment if they are to be dynamic, lively, spirited and responsible pathfinders for societies and nations Rensburg A pathfinder is defined as one who discovers a new course or way, especially through mapping into unexplored regions Rensburg However, nurse educators still use various methods of teaching in a robotic manner Mellish et al 21, OBE is a hands-on learning approach that encourages students to be actively engaged in the construction of their own learning and to demonstrate critical and creative thinking through interactive dialogue. Worldwide, educators are urged to engage in scientific research to determine the validity and value of teaching and assessment methods and to lay down guidelines for the educators who have to utilise the methods in the classroom. There is a growing body of research on how to improve classroom instruction Woolfolk Fraser, Loubser and Van Rooy Nurse educators should be well acquainted with the nature and structure of the science that they practice so that the full force thereof can be utilised during teaching. The varied teaching methods used for instruction, be it in the classroom or in a clinical setting, should also have a scientific character improved through research. It is therefore important that nurse educators play their role as researchers to investigate the didactic validity of teaching and assessment methods on a continuous basis and to lay down guidelines to improve the practice of educators and promote critical thinking by student nurses. It is to achieve the aforementioned goals that forms the focus of this paper — exploring concept-mapping as a teaching method to facilitate critical thinking. The steps involved in concept-mapping will also be described for assist nurse educators to utilise the teaching effectively. Assumptions The author believes that concept-mapping is an integral teaching method to facilitate critical thinking. Concept-mapping encourages meaningful understanding by helping students to organise and strategy the information they already know about a subject with the new knowledge. The students are able to link and cross-link the concepts and describe their relationship. Through concept-mapping the nurse educator can determine the intellectual growth of students and also diagnose their misunderstanding through misdirected links or wrong connections. Theoretical Framework Back to top Relevant literature was drawn on in order to provide a definition of concept-mapping and a theoretical framework and epistemological foundation for concept-mapping as a teaching method. A description is then offered of the process of utilising concept-mapping in steps to assist nurse educators to facilitate critical thinking by cognitive/concept nurses. Concept-mapping as a teaching method According to All and Havens They are useful tools in representing the structure of knowledge in a form that is psychologically compatible with the way in which human beings construct meaning. Concepts play an integral part in language construction and, nursing to Vygotsky No thinking can occur in a vacuum Dewey A concept is a perceived regularity in events or objects, or records of events or nursing, designated by a label. Concept maps include concepts, usually enclosed in circles or boxes of some type and relationships between concepts or propositions, indicated by a connecting line and linking words between concepts. Propositions are statements about some object or event teaching contain two or more concepts connected by linking words or phrases to form a meaningful statement. Such statements make epistemic or knowledge claims. The fundamental idea is to determine how learning occurs and how thinking develops. Educational psychology stresses productive thinking as a component of the all-round development of personality and the nature of abilities to learn. According to Tikhomirov It is argued that students are unique individual beings whose way of learning may be unique to them, and that educators should take these differences into account when they plan and execute their teaching methods Fraser et al. Using teaching methods that encourage interaction, dialogue, discourse and collaborative learning Fraser et al. No teaching strategy can be planned and executed effectively if the educator does not know how learning takes place and which factors can contribute to meaningful and optimal learning Fraser et al. The more concepts the student acquires, the more strategy and cross-links the student can make between them. This results in the student having a richly connected and finely integrated conceptual framework for meaningful learning Gravett In order to achieve meaningful learning, Ausubel in Mellish et al. Students should take responsibility for their own learning. They should choose to learn meaningfully and have the emotional commitment to integrate new meanings with existing, relevant knowledge, rather than simply memorising concept definitions or propositional statements. Learning set or intention can be equated with learner readiness, which, according to Knowles Learner readiness, according to Thompson and Jolley Ausubel in Mellish et al. Conceptual clarity leads to indicators that may assist the student in altering his or her existing knowledge structure in the light mapping the new information Mouton The student should construct new meanings and new ways of thinking Gravett Concepts are powerful building blocks for the meaningful construction of knowledge. Cognitive theories emphasise the human mind as an active and individual processor of information. Kohler in Quinn Psychologists, philosophers and epistemologists argue that new knowledge creation is a constructive cognitive process involving both our knowledge and our emotions, or the drive to create new meanings and new ways to represent these meanings. According to Paul Negative emotions can hamper learning, as they encourage negativity, leading to the division of students in a group. Students should attempt to develop rational feelings and emotions in their group interaction, follow the arguments and decide things in terms of where they lead, as other students may have a point of view that is worth considering. The creation of new knowledge cannot take place in a passive manner; it requires active engagement and participation and genuine commitment to the event. Vygotsky argues that all higher mental functions have their origins in social interactions. Educators should place students where they have to reach out to understand and stretch into areas beyond comfortable concepts. Students should be exposed to environments that will encourage them to discover new knowledge Gagne Constructivism is particularly congruent with the notion of self-directed learning and puts emphasis on active enquiry, independence and individuality in constructing meaning. According to Vygotsky The methods of teaching selected must foster in students the ability to think critically and creatively in order to make meaningful sense of the strategy situation Mouton Encouraging students to use concept-mapping as a learning method to explore and gain better understanding of a topic for example, asthma is to help them engage in a critical and creative thinking process and this can be challenging to students who come from a didactic environment that encourages rote learning. Rote learning encourages passivity, with no emotional engagement in the learning event, and therefore it cannot underpin creative and critical thinking in students. Educators are urged to create conducive environments to facilitate the creation of new knowledge to improve teaching methods that foster critical and analytical thinking in students Ramsden Critical thinking A Delphi study was conducted by the American Philosophical Association APA from February to Novemberunder the leadership of Peter A. The purpose of the study was to critically analyse the concept of critical thinking. An interactive panel of 62 experts in critical thinking took part in the six rounds of the Delphi project. The panel identified six cognitive thinking skills interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation and their related sub-skills, which are shown in Table 1. The affective dispositions that supports the cognitive skills for identified as inquisitiveness, analyticity, for, systematic analysis, self-confidence and truth seeking thoughts Facione In its fifth recommendation, the panel urged that the critical thinking framework should be used by educators to develop didactic activities such as a curriculum and evaluation instruments and to improve teaching and assessment strategy Facione The critical thinking framework is applied in this paper to improve the use of concept-mapping as a teaching method to facilitate critical thinking by students in nursing education. The Delphi study by the American Philosophical Association APA defined critical thinking as a purposeful, self-regulatory judgment that results in the analysis, interpretation, inference, evaluation and explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological or contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based. It is essentially a tool of inquiry Facione The results of the Delphi study indicated that the characteristics of an ideal critical thinker are: These characteristics play an important role when using concept-mapping to facilitate critical thinking by students. Critical thinking cannot be facilitated in a vacuum or in a robotic manner, focusing only on mass production, assembly-line, task-orientated methods Karola Likewise, facilitating critical thinking through concept-mapping requires a domain, context or theme with which the students should engage collaboratively. The theoretical framework for critical thinking in accordance with the APA Delphi study is represented in Table 1. Core cognitive critical thinking skills, their sub-skills and the affective dispositions Facione The thinking skills are employed interactively and interchangeably in the critical and reflective reasoning process of making judgments on what to believe or do. Simpson and Courtney In practice, a nurse experienced in critical thinking will intuitively use all the core cognitive thinking skills simultaneously to provide cognitive/concept emergency care in any clinical situation. The discussion of the implementation of concept-mapping as a teaching method to facilitate critical thinking will take the form of the educational process cognitive/concept, planning, implementation, evaluation and feedback as determined by educational and cognitive psychologists see below. In this discussion, concept-mapping steps two and three planning and implementation and steps four and five evaluation and feedback are combined. Assessment Educational and cognitive psychologists advocate the following aspects of the educational process when explaining how teaching and learning should take place Bruner ; Gagne ; Knowles ; Rogers ; Vygotsky The first step is the assessment of background knowledge to determine the pre-existing concepts already known by the student. The process starts with the awareness of the situation. This step forms the basis of concept-mapping as a teaching method to facilitate critical thinking, because without the existence of some knowledge, no reflective or critical thinking will take place Dewey Several fundamental critical and reflective questions Brookfield Different questions require different modes of thinking Paul The following questions may be asked regarding concept-mapping: Who are the participants and at what level of training are they? What background knowledge do they have in the specific subject? What other interdisciplinary knowledge or strategy do they possess in their cognitive structure that will help them to understand the selected topic? What is the focus area, theme or topic that is to be dealt with using concept-mapping? What supportive tools are needed to enable the construction process through concept-mapping cards, colour pens, markers, rulers or extra paper? Have the students identified the shape or format of the template? Do they need to use computer graphics? Have the students identified the members of their small working group? Have they identified the time and space needed for collaborative work to be engaged in? Have they identified the key concepts closely and distantly related to the domain as much as possible? How can concept-mapping as a teaching method be implemented differently? The assessment step will end with a checklist of things to be assessed and to be identified by the students. Planning and implementation The interactive constructing process is a dynamic, mutual, collaborative exchange of ideas, thoughts and feelings between the student and the learning environment, and between the students themselves, in the quest to make meaning by constructing new knowledge and skills through interaction Chabeli In their planning and implementation of a teaching method, nurse educators should be aware that students arrive at meaning by actively for and accumulatively constructing their own knowledge through interaction, rather than by receiving and storing knowledge. The student brings an accumulated baggage of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values to a particular teaching and learning situation, and these form an important framework that envelopes the immediate learning situation Gravett This step requires the use of critical, creative, reflective and conceptualisation skills, which are regarded as higher thinking skills Beyer Clarke, James and Kelly This is a data-gathering step in which students should demonstrate critical thinking dispositions such as flexibility, willingness, open-mindedness, an inquiring mind and analyticity in gathering data about the phenomenon Facione The cognitive skills of analysis, interpretation and inference play an integral part in this step. Analysing is taking apart, disassembling and deconstructing in order to perceive or establish a pattern or relationship s Beyer It is a process of breaking up a whole into its parts to examine the details so as to determine the nature of a phenomenon Paul During this step, students are expected to explore, examine and analyse the identified concepts, statements, main ideas, thoughts, clues or patterns of significance in detail to have clarity in the process. The students should engage in brainstorming ideas and thoughts to generate large sets of concepts and statements that address the focus area without judging or editing teaching information Plotnick Students should try to understand the flow of ideas. At this stage, students should not worry about redundancy, or the relative importance of the information or the relationships. This is the step in which students would generate the largest possible list of concepts and statements. The best interpretation takes the most evidence and justification into account. Having analysed and generated numerous facts, thoughts, ideas, concepts and statements, the students should engage in collaborative dialogue to interpret the information meaningfully. Dialogue, like critical thinking, engages students actively in their learning. A successful dialogue involves a willing partnership and is marked by a sharing and empathetic attitude, cooperation, mutual respect and trust, especially in the face of likely disagreements, confusion and misunderstandings Gravett Dialogue is exploratory and interrogatory for the purpose of breaking through to new insights and different perspectives and allowing for conceptual change to take place Chabeli It encourages critical thinking and a deep approach to learning as students engage in a search for meaning and active understanding through active participation in exploratory discussion, debates and brainstorming during concept-mapping. The interpretation requires students to be open and fair-minded. During this step of concept-mapping, students should make interdisciplinary connections by using other related knowledge from subjects like anatomy, physiology, microbiology, pharmacology, psychology, sociology, chemistry and physics to enhance the process of data interpretation. Interpretation involves the process of categorisation, decoding significance and clarifying meaning Facione To make an inference, according to Paul Students make inferences through the concepts and statements that they bring to the learning situation. Inference brings together all the various elements needed to query the evidence collected, to draw reasonable conclusions and to form conjectures Facione cognitive/concept The students should generate more information and make accurate inferences in the presence of more evidential information. Through dialogue students should construct maps from identified concepts so as to be able to formulate meaning which will assist them to remember information when it is needed. The thinking skills of synthesis and organisation of identified concepts play an integral role during the formulation process of concept-mapping. What is created is always new, unique and goal-directed. The students should be actively involved in sorting the concepts into piles of similar ones, using card systems or categorising them directly on a computer by dragging the concepts and statements into piles that they create. Piles are named with a short descriptive label. Each statement is rated on some scale of 1—5 according to its importance, where 1 means the statement is unimportant and 5 means that it is extremely important Trochim The treatment of asthma can be clustered under the headings pharmacological and non-pharmacological. Pharmacological can be clustered into homeopathic herbs, traditional medicines and Western medicine. Clustering may go on and on for better nursing. Students are encouraged to engage in collaborative dialogue, connecting new information to existing knowledge and integrating interdisciplinary knowledge, to arrive at meaningful concept-mapping. The students should be free to use their creativity and imagination, as demonstrated by a deliberate choice of style, format, using different colour-coding and shapes, arrows to join ideas from different branches or drawing circles around related ideas to enhance meaning and understanding. All of this leads to new insights and conceptual change. There should be no coercion from the nurse educator in the process of refining the map. At the end of the formulation of the concept map, the students should demonstrate critical thinking dispositions, such as teaching in providing explanations of the reasoning process behind the formulation. According to Facione During the explanation, the students justify and present arguments based on their interpretations, analysis, evaluations or inferences, so that they can accurately record, evaluate, describe or justify those processes to themselves or to others, or so that they can remedy perceived deficiencies in the general way they execute those processes. The nurse educator should create an environment of freedom, respect and trust, encouragement and support, and of motivation and guidance towards the facilitation of critical thinking by students through concept-mapping. Evaluation and feedback The concept map formulated in this way can now be used as a visual framework for learning the selected learning area, for example asthma. It can also be used as the basis for developing measures of understanding and displaying the results of the thinking process. The concept map can be given a title and can be placed on PowerPoint mapping that other students can view it and take the discussion further. It is important to recognise that a concept-map is never finished Novak It is always necessary to evaluate and revise the map. Good concept maps usually undergo many revisions concerning the positioning of concepts and statements in ways that lend clarity, and ordering or re-ordering the related cross-links. Evaluation is the process of judging or determining the worth, accuracy, completeness or quality of a phenomenon Beyer Evaluation has a logical component and should be carefully distinguished from mere subjective performance. The nursing of its logic may be put in the form of questions, which may be asked whenever an evaluation is to be carried out Paul Students should be encouraged to revise their concept maps. According to Dewey Questions such as the following are usually helpful: Why or why not? The more closely one looks at the map and the material used, the more questions will come to the fore and the more self-monitoring will occur to check the good reasoning ability of students or where things went wrong. If something does not make sense, or mapping unresolved, the students should try to state explicitly why cognitive/concept in what way is there a problem? This may be difficult to do, but it is a worthwhile exercise because it will make it easier for students to find answers Counseling Services This step demonstrates the critical thinking disposition of truth seeking and intellectual maturity. Evaluation should be ongoing throughout the activities of concept-mapping. Critical thinking is an integral part of the evaluation process. It is used to assess the credibility of concepts and statements or other representations made on the map. It assesses the claims and the contextual relevance of the information gathered to formulate the map. Feedback should be realistic, specific, timely, descriptive and mapping. It should be sensitive to the goals of the learners and be consciously non-judgmental. Feedback should be propedious and allow students to grow in their learning Chabeli Facilitating critical and reflective thinking in nursing students will remain a challenge for nurse educators. It is therefore recommended that nurse educators focus on formulating hypotheses and engaging in further research on the validity of teaching methods that facilitate reflective and critical thinking. The interactive, dialogic and collaborative approaches to learning are at the forefront of the facilitation of reflective and critical thinking to promote deeper understanding, thereby enriching the general psychological theory of thinking Tikhomirov Concept-mapping is a teaching method to facilitate creative, reflective and critical thinking. It is recommended that nurse educators use concept-mapping to facilitate critical thinking and encourage a deep approach to learning. Educators can use concept-mapping to plan and revise curricula. They should encourage learners to use concept-mapping to make summaries of large chunks of information. Concept-mapping can also be used to plan research activities and to plan patient care. It can be a valuable method to teach clinical nursing education for for example, nursing care of a patient on peritoneal or haemodialysis. Conclusion Back to top Critical thinking has become a national issue in the education arena. Educators might be successful in teaching the basics, but are perhaps not always sure that their students will be able to analyse and evaluate what they are taught. The question that arises is: This is a huge challenge to educators in general and to nurse educators in particular, as the nursing profession requires nurses who have well-developed critical and creative thinking skills with which to organise, reorganise, conceptualise or re-conceptualise problems and come up with feasible, rational solutions or astute clinical judgments Facione Nurses need critical thinking skills to perform their daily functions in practice. In this paper, the author has tried to discuss concept-mapping as a teaching method to facilitate critical thinking by students by exploring the theoretical framework and epistemological foundation of concept-mapping. The theoretical framework of critical thinking has provided the framework within which concept-mapping can be implemented in accordance with the educational process format. Further research should be conducted to implement concept-mapping as a teaching method to facilitate critical thinking by student nurses. References Back to top Akinsanya, C. A cognitive view2nd edn. Emotional intelligence in businessTexere Publishing, New York. Counselling Services,Concept-mappingUniversity of Victoria. A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative processLexington, Massachusetts, Health and Company. Executive summary, The Delphi Report, California Academic Press, Millibrae. Designing and implementing learning events — a dialogic approach, Van Schaik Publishers, Pretoria. Understanding and promoting intellectual growth and critical thinking in adolescents and adultsJossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco. What the heck is this? What every person needs to survive in a rapidly changing worldFoundation for Critical Thinking, Santa Rosa. Concept-mapping A graphical system for understanding the relationship between conceptsEric Clearinghouse on Information and Technology, Syracuse. A reflective approachArnold. No unauthorised duplication allowed. AOSIS OpenJournals Perfecting Scholarship Online Postnet SuitePrivate Bag X19, Durbanville, South Africa, Tel: Concept-mapping as a teaching method to facilitate critical thinking in nursing education: Nursing review of the literature. In This Original Research Article Back to top Nursing students are exposed to a vast amount of information and reading material that is very specific, technical, and new to the students. Back to top Facilitating critical thinking remains a challenge faced by both nurse educators and student nurses, especially in the multi-modal and learner-centred approach to learning. Back to top Relevant literature was drawn on in order to provide a definition of concept-mapping and a theoretical framework and epistemological foundation for concept-mapping as a teaching method. Back to top The cognitive thinking skills reflected in Table 1 do not necessarily suggest a linear form of reasoning. Back to top Critical thinking has become a national issue in the education arena. Back to top Akinsanya, C. cognitive/concept mapping a teaching strategy for nursing

4 thoughts on “Cognitive/concept mapping a teaching strategy for nursing”

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