Chapter 13

• Alan: 'A commitment to lifelong learning is the mark of a truly professional person. He devotes time and attention to learning how to learn, learn how to be selective and recognizes that learning requires work.'
• Intended Learning Outcomes:
• At the end of this chapter, the student will be able to:

  Explain the different roles of communication in the teaching and learning process;

  Describe the various elements of communication;

  Discuss factors that can influence effective communication;

  Differentiate the types of communication;

  Identify the relevance of communication to teaching and learning.
• The clinical practice setting provides students and teachers with opportunities to share a common goal of what to teach and what to learn. This depends on the ability of both students and teachers to share their insights and their values regarding nursing experience through effective communication process.
• The teacher's ability to motivate the learners and to ensure that the learners properly absorb the lessons being taught is directly related to the teacher's communication abilities, both in terms of her knowledge and skills. The teacher's ability to personally talk to her students during the course of the lesson can help identify problems arising from the discussions. Concerns of both the teacher and learners can be managed through professional relationship and open communication process.
• Communication


  Anything that conveys a message. It carries a message from one person to another.
• Communication


  Interacting with one another to simply assume the role of another person and secure a common experience.
• Communication


  The ability to understand and find meaning into the message sent for appropriate response.
• Effective communication


  Requires knowledge of the subject matter, the theories, and the stimuli to which other persons will respond or react.
• Developments in communication very much influence the efficiency and effectiveness of the teaching and learning process.
• Communication embodies the instructional process which is the heart of education, and instructional materials give shape and substance to the curriculum, control its contents which significantly affect the teaching-learning process. Hence, communication lends support to the development of effective "instructional materials".
• Traditional mode of communication


  • Print supplemented by motion pictures
  • Slides or films
  • Radio and disk recordings
• Modern mode of communication

  • Television/Radio
  • Programmed machine teaching
  • Language laboratories
  • Computers/Internet/Social Media
  • PowerPoint Presentations
  • Blackboard settings
• Current instructional media, are not merely aids to teaching, but they can also store and disseminate information in ways never achieved before; perform functions which were for a long time the exclusive domain of the teacher; illustrate, discuss, analyze, present content, form concepts, and build generalizations; and even systematically prescribe areas for student's inquiry. These new capabilities of teachers in nursing in the classroom and in the clinical setting need re-examination and possibly reformulation in order to appropriately utilize communication strategies specific to the subject content taught.
• Active communication process enables the teacher to present facts, design concepts, and guide students in their related learning experience with a view of accomplishing the objectives for learning. Furthermore, active communication can help the teacher work with individual students and gain attention, direct their learning to transfer meaning from one area to another, use machines for presentation of much of the factual materials and routine exposition, point out further references, ask critical questions and encourage students to accept increasingly higher levels of responsibility for their own learning or educational growth.
• Everything that goes on in the teaching-learning situation, whether in the classroom, in the clinical setting, in the home such as in the community health nursing, is in some way a form of communication. Furthermore, the teacher of nursing must be concerned with the teaching of basic communication skills between patient and nurse, nurse and family, nurse and doctor, and nurses and other health care personnel.
• Source


  In a teaching-learning situation, the teacher is the "source" of communication by originating or perceiving an idea or purpose which she wants to communicate in order to produce a particular response in the learner.
• Message


  The goal, intent or purpose to be communicated by the teacher is expressed through the form of a message.
• Channel


  To encode the purpose of the source into a message, a channel is needed. In the case of face-to-face communication, the encoding function is channeled directly by the intellectual, the sensory and the motor skills of the source, such as vocal mechanism for oral communication, the muscle system for the written word or the drawing of pictures, posture and gestures and facial expressions for nonverbal communication.
• Receiver


  In the teaching-learning situation, the student for whom the message is intended is considered the receiver in the communication process.
• Verbal or Oral Communication


  The basis for verbal or oral communication is the interaction between individuals. This is usually done face-to-face. Individuals may now use modern communication technologies such as the internet live chat or telephone technologies in oral or verbal communication.
• Nonverbal Communication


  Nonverbal communication does not use words but rather more of actions through signs, facial expressions and other body languages or movements.
• Senses used in Nonverbal Communication


  • Sight
  • Audition
  • Gustation
  • Olfactory
  • Touch
• Many factors influence the effectiveness of any particular communication, some of which are knowledge, ability, experience, attitude, and sociocultural status of both source and receiver. These foregoing concepts which apply to human communication wherever and for whatever purpose, apply equally to the teaching-learning situation in nursing such as the classroom, the clinical setting, the public health agency, the family home, and other clinical settings.
• Wiggins: 'The more the teacher knows about the nature of communication process, its components, the condition which facilitates it, the better are the chances for effective teaching and learning.'