It is important for the safety of the patient and the self-esteem of the student to evaluate the students about their clinical knowledge, abilities, and skills. Teachers use different methods to evaluate their students regularly. Assessment techniques used by teachers depend upon their teaching methods and their ability how quickly they can understand their student’s capabilities. Evaluating students is essential to assess the knowledge and skills of nursing students. During my student life, I have been evaluated on different levels and by different techniques. For me, the best assessment experience I have had as a student was the self-reflection technique; this strategy is a vital section of clinical learning. Self-reflection gives a chance to reflect on one’s sense of experience and observation. This method was helpful for me as it gave me new outlooks on experience, change in conduct towards patients, commitment, readiness, and in keeping track of my growth over time. This method aided me in finding my strengths and weaknesses and helped me in setting new goals for improvement. Maintaining a nursing portfolio was a requirement by our teacher. The portfolio shows who we are and what we have done so far which helped our teacher in evaluating us regularly, Being a teacher recalling my best evaluation experience as a student benefits me to remember the best way I learned and the mode my teacher used to recognize my competencies.
As an instructor, I used many techniques for the evaluation of my students like written projects, observation of behavior and skills, reflective learning, and, oral assessment. But the best assessment experience for me is the peer input method. Peer assessment is a practice in which nurses systematically judge and observe their colleague nurses against professional standards. Nurses are asked to make judgments about the excellence of nursing care and performance of procedures of their fellow nurses and give a report on them on a weekly basis. This method has been recognized as fundamental nursing practice. Peer review requires that nurses should be judged by other nurses of the same rank or standing. This method is most suitable as it helps the nurses to evaluate themselves and their peers by reviews of their fellow nurses. The nurses can judge their capabilities and weak points through the reviews of their colleagues. This method is somewhat similar to the self-reflection experience I had as a student, as this method also gives the opportunity for nurses to judge others through self-reflection. Nurses can learn about their flaws and points while observing others. The similarity between my experience and the technique I use is advantageous in the way that it reminds me of what it is like to be a student and how this method was best to help me learn and evaluate myself.
Peer input technique is the way nurses can reflect upon themselves in the best way. This method not only gives feedback to the learners by their teachers but also by their fellow nurses, who know them outside their class environment. With my assessment technique, I want to achieve the following things in my students. Make them able to evaluate themselves and their colleagues on different levels. Make them capable of pinpointing their strengths and flaws. Enrich their learning skills. Help them in improving their attitude toward patients and others. They can learn from others’ mistakes and work hard to improve their work. I try to build confidence in my students, and this improves the teacher-student relationship. This technique helps nurses to understand one another and allows them to work with each other in harmony. This process makes the scholars discover means to overcome their impediments and address their insufficiencies in a manner that works best for them. This practice paybacks to me by giving me a clear picture of my student’s personalities and skills. Peer review assessment techniques help me in assessing my students frequently. With my assessment techniques, I can enhance my skills of critical thinking, sense of responsibility, ability to work in groups, and evaluation of others in my students. These skills not only support the nurses with their patient-nurse relationship only but refines their whole personality also.
There are many different methods of assessing students. For the assessment of my students, I use the peer review method. The peer assessment method has noteworthy potential as it encourages deep learning. Peer review is considered a fundamental element that is needed to make sure that the nurses improve the quality of their patient care process (Burchett & Spivak, 2014). Peer assessment provides healthy feedback and fulfills other endorsed proficient requirements. It is a rudimentary part of clinical governance and can apply to other departments or organizational levels. Peer review is used for gathering information to enhance student learning and the performance of the individual. The feedback is used to pinpoint the learning needs of clinical staff and to increase the quality of care and safety for patients (Boehm & Bonnel, 2010). In light of the above references, I can say that my assessment strategy is better as opposed to other strategies as this not only evaluate the work and skills of nurses but increase the self-esteem of the nurses in clinical practice and improve their cognitive abilities (Secomb, 2008). Other methods like exams and weekly tests only evaluate the students of their learning abilities. Peer assessment benefits them in critical thinking and getting feedback from their friends which help them in overcoming their mistakes.
Burchett, M. L., & Spivak, M. (2014). Nurse peer evaluation: A roadmap to professional growth and development. Nursing management, 45(8), 18-20.
Boehm, H., & Bonnel, W. (2010). The use of peer review in nursing education and clinical practice. Journal for Nurses in Professional Development, 26(3), 108-115.
Secomb, J. (2008). A systematic review of peer teaching and learning in clinical education. Journal of clinical nursing, 17(6), 703-716.