Deconstructing professional nursing education / Ma. Carmelita A. Villegas

Like other health related professions, it followed a traditional approach as in apprenticeship, such that learning took place in close association with a teacher professional. The nursing. profession in the Philippines has been under the clout of the medical profession since the early inception of a nursing law in 1915. For this reason the related learning experience component of the nursing program (either clinical or community exposure of students) has not been fully maximized in terms of enriching it to a deeper level teaching learning experience. Instead, it is imperative for nursing education to focus on teaching students how to learn, facilitating learning, and developing lifelong learners. Highly developed teaching and learning pedagogies, are created to critically engage students in rich learning environments. In modern progressive societies, professional nursing education has sometimes disregarded the value of this traditional learning approach. In my experience as a student, I have come to reflect on how role model education has helped shape my professional values, attitudes and behaviors. How important was the impact of teachers taking on the responsibility of developing student nurses' professional identity through the informal process of role modeling? A consistent strategy identified in the nursing education. literature to facilitate development of competent and professional behaviors in nursing students is observational learning. Faculty members are the primary 'socializers' in the learning of professional roles, serving as a yardstick by which the student evaluates performance and acquisition of attributes of the professional group. Education becomes experiential and process- oriented. Through active collaboration within professional learning communities, nursing educators can be empowered to innovate and develop teaching-learning practices and materials by benchmarking with global practices through the use of technology at the same time selecting and testing models that would fit the Filipino learning culture. Applying the use of critical pedagogy and the other habits of the mind in tackling professional nursing issues within the context of a developing society with all its contemporary social conditions can ripen the consciousness of nursing educators.

Nursing.