Turn your teaching mistakes into learning opportunities.
Can you recall a moment that you messed up during a teaching session? That it was so embarrassing that you wanted to hide under a rock for the rest of your life?
Hello there,
If this sounds familiar, let me tell you about three mistakes I made teaching a medical- surgical nursing class and how I turned them into learning opportunities.
The critical thing is what you do when you mess up or make a mistake.
Messing up in your professional and personal life is inevitable; it’s just a matter of when it will happen.
Don’t believe the hype from people that says that they haven’t messed up at some point in their lives.
1.Poor time management.
Before I left to go to teach that class, I was working on another project and didn’t review my topic.
As a result, everything was not clear, and I didn’t have time to compose myself and separate the two projects that I was working with, which resulted in a confusing presentation. Don’t get me wrong, I am accustomed to working on multiple projects, but multitasking is unproductive.
When you multitask, you give one project or area more attention than the other resulting in poor delivery of your presentation. Persons who state that they can multitask well don’t do a great job at it. There are studies to back up my point.
Learning opportunity
You need to set aside at least 15 to 30 minutes without doing anything before your next class for the day of the course if possible. To use time management in advance, I suggest preparing two weeks before your class.
When you do this, your brain is not clouded. So, you have clarity, and you could be more productive and have successful student learning outcomes.
Interesting enough, effective time management is what we imprint on our nursing students’ minds.
As a result, the skill will be useful in the clinical setting when they have to prioritize their 5 or 6 patients depending on the environment.
Effective time management is the key to having increased productivity and delivery of effective presentations.
I later enrolled in a time management class on lynda.com, which is now called LinkedIn Learning- www.linkedin.com-Online-Training
I implemented all the strategies that the class instructor stated to be effective and productive. Yes, it worked.
2. Teaching the wrong topic
During the time I was preparing this same class, I gave incorrect information about a disease process.
Within 5 minutes of teaching, one of the nursing students said, “ Ms. Miller, that’s not true what you’re saying.” I immediately looked over at my notes and realized I wasn’t even supposed to be teaching that disease process and said sorry briefly.
Comparatively speaking, that disease process was a behavioral health condition that I knew.
I had taken care of patients with this condition for years but messed up that day. Can you relate?
Moreover, I was not assigned to teach behavioral health at that college. That subject was for another faculty member who was to co-teach later that day.
Of course, behavioral health is incorporated in every aspect of a patient’s care because nurses care for the whole client or holistically, but that’s not the point I am trying to make here.
I immediately wanted to go under a rock or encapsulate myself in an opaque balloon when I realized I was teaching someone else’s topic as well as teaching the incorrect information.
Simultaneously, then walks the nursing faculty who was about to teach that behavioral health condition for the day.
I then explained to her what happened, and I left. I am not sure if she remembers this.
Learning opportunity
I went to my office and started composing an email to my dean to let her know what happened and how embarrassed I was.
Teaching someone else’s topic is problematic, let alone disseminating incorrect information. Don’t be mad at me! I have never repeated this mistake.
If you are co-teaching a class, especially on the same day, you must look over the schedule in advance and know what you’re teaching as opposed to what the other faculty is teaching.
If you have to highlight the areas you will be covering to make it easier, then do that. You can separate the materials since they were all included in the same syllabus that I had.
3. Quitting and apologizing
Taking responsibility for my actions is one of my core values.
I was writing the email to my dean while an incoming email came from her about the incident.
I apologized for the situation. The dean was very gracious and told me that things like this happen. I promised her that I’d do my best never to let this happen again.
To be transparent, I wanted to quit and not face those students again. How could a nursing professor make such a big mistake like this? Wasn’t I the subject matter expert?
Learning opportunity
The next week when I went back to the same class, I told the entire class how sorry I was about providing them with the wrong information and teaching someone else’s topic and asked them to forgive me.
After my part of the class finished, most of the students came to me and told me how proud they were that I apologized to everyone and didn’t make any excuses.
The 3 Mistakes I made teaching the medical-surgical class and how I turned them into learning opportunities can be a way for you to not be hard on yourself and learn from my mistakes.
Admittedly, this is not the first time I’ve messed up in my teaching career and felt like quitting, and I know it will not be the last, but decreasing these mistakes and turning them into learning opportunities is vital.
These mistakes I made from teaching made me mindful of the fact that you always need to research what you’re going to present.
After all, this is what we teach our students before administering medications or any other actions.
Researching minimizes any embarrassing moments. Most of all, it allows you to be a subject matter expert so that the students know the right information.
Also, practice time management for all classes so that you have adequate time to teach successfully.
Finally, apologize when you do something wrong and don’t quit.
Have you experienced something similar to this in your teaching career, and how did you handle it? If so, please comment and let me know.
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling, but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
Albert Einstein
She can help you with strategies to achieve engaging classroom and corporate presentations. She has worked as a college professor, corporate trainer, as an RN in areas such as medical-surgical, emergency room, telemetry, behavioral health, and geriatrics for more than 15 years.
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Thank you for sharing these information very helpful
Thank you Greta.
Your Nursing Voice