Students of the Veterinary Nursing Program are passionate about animal health, and less concerned about communication. In fact, many students pursue veterinary medicine to avoid frequent interactions with others. Veterinary nurses play a critical role in client communication and education, communicating heavily with others. Much of the communication and hospital procedures course that I teach focuses on soft skills such as communication, empathy, and listening. So, how do I stress the importance of this content to students, keep them engaged, and help them make true connections to the course’s content? This can be accomplished through the creation and utilization of a well-structured assessment.
The assessment will focus on students and their personal connections to communication. Titled “My Communication Journal”, the assessment will be an ongoing journal that students will complete throughout the communication unit in the course. The journal will ask students to complete weekly tasks relating to the content and objectives provided.
This journal, a document that includes weekly instructions and assignments, is where students will write personal stories, review information, and complete small assignments. To begin, students will write how they feel about communication, their experience with communication specific courses, and their thoughts on what communication is. Then, using Flipgrid, a video recording and discussion platform, students will record a short story using only nonverbal communication, followed by sharing the same story using only verbal communication. This exercise will feel strange to them but will help identify the importance of both nonverbal and verbal communication. To review client-specific communication, a client and presenting complaint scenario will be given to students. They will be asked to think of a handful of open-ended questions that could be used to gain more information about the patient’s general history and the specific presenting complaint. To help students retrieve crucial conversation and communication information and apply it, they’ll be asked to illustrate a personal difficult conversation they had using the model they were taught. Lastly, students will be asked to reflect back on what they learned during the unit as a whole. Feedback and final thoughts could include information such as what helped, what they enjoyed, and how they plan to apply the information moving forward.
My initial vision of this ongoing assessment can be found here. I offer a variety of tasks in hopes that most students will find this assessment valuable, engaging, and worthwhile.
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