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Welcome to the Patient Educators Update.

Introduction

This is Episode 25, Teaching a Group, Part 1.

We are joined by Fran London MS, RN. Fran is the Patient Education Specialist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital in Phoenix, AZ. She is the author of the No Time to Teach: The Essence of Patient and Family Education for Health Care Providers voted 2010 Book of the Year by the National Journal of Nursing and available in both print and digital formats. Hospitals can save 40% on quantity orders directly from the publisher Pritchett and Hull.

You can follow Fran on her Blog, No Time to Teach,  on Twitter @notimetoteach and Facebook.

The Patient Educators Update is brought to you by the Medical Media Delivery System – MMDS, the Video on Demand Patient Education Solution for hospitals and clinics.

Show Notes

Our discussion today is how to teach a group. Most of our topics have been about teaching individual patients, but one of the chapters in the book, No Time to Teach, (page 123) is called ‘How to Teach a Group’.

“Many think you can save time by teaching patients with the same diagnosis in a group rather than individually. That would allow you to teach all of them just once instead of doing it one at a time,” from No Time to Teach. 

However, so much of teaching is individual assessment and evaluation of understanding; you can’t really do that in a group more efficiently than one-on-one. On the other hand, group teaching does provide another dynamic. Adults learn better from other adults and they learn better when they get to ask questions and participate.

One of the important differences with groups is the instructor decides what the learners need to do to learn, and this shifts the focus from the instructor to the adult learner. The point of the group interaction is to get them involved in the topic; ask questions and feel comfortable talking about things that they ordinarily might not talk about. 

The group dynamic promotes learning by doing. Even though they’re talking, not doing the personal nature of what they’re talking about is real life experiences they can relate better to one another. The information sinks in a lot deeper than if you just talk to them.

If you want learners to remember and use the information teach half as much content in twice the time. This approach gives the patient more time to reflect on the content. Adult learners learn by thinking about what it is said; how it applies to their lives, how it might fit in, how they might do it, and this process takes time. When you have a conversation in the group between attendees or the instructor and attendees, you have time where each person starts thinking about things, and then ask questions. As a result, a much deeper learning evolves.

What types of groups are we talking about? Post-discharge group with a chronic illness, that need to pay attention to ongoing maintenance or in-patients that have just had a procedure and they need to learn some things before they go home? Group teaching works for both. Basically, you want an audience with the same issue or diagnosis in common. You also want them to be at the same phase, or close to it, if possible, whether it’s right before discharge or newly diagnosed.

Its important to find out what the members of the group want and need to learn. Sometimes, you can do that before the group starts with a simple survey and sometimes it’s the first thing you do in the group setting.

Provide a handout. It shouldn’t be a copy of your PowerPoint slides. It should be a pamphlet or a booklet that provides all the information they need to know. The group meeting then becomes a conversation about what they care about rather than a rehash of what’s in the handout.

When presenting to a group, move from small to big, slow to fast, easy to hard, and then connect the content to real life. You want to make it easy for them to jump in. You want to make them comfortable. One of the ways to do that is ask a question then ask the attendees to discuss it with the person next to them. The topic shouldn’t be too personal. You want them to relax and feel safe. Then as they begin to talk more freely you can open the discussion up to the broader group. This way group members are likely to be more willing to open up and have a conversation within the larger group.

Give the learners control and offer choices. This is more facilitation than teaching because the information is going to be what’s important to the individual attendees. If you help them discuss the issues that they’re asking about, that will involve and engage them and they’ll come out feeling like they got some benefit from the meeting. You don’t want them to feel like they’ve wasted their time. You want them to be comfortable asking questions and discussing the topics.

Adults learn best when they’re motivated. If they have a question and you ignore it, they’ll have trouble hearing anything else you say. Talk about the issues they care about; make them feel comfortable. If you can’t give them the answers right then and there, at least provide the resources after the fact so that their questions are answered and they have closure.

Include an element of accountability. We recommend that at the end of the session have a summary question: “What is it that you heard today that you will (or might) take home and do?” Just the process of asking encourages thought and group members will usually come up with something that they will do and that helps make them more accountable. Something as simple as taking their medicine after they leave is often enough to help change behaviors.

Part 2 will be posted shortly.

For more information on patient education please download our Patient Education Resource Kit to learn the 10 Reasons to Use Video for Patient Education.

Tagged as: Fran London, patient education, patient education teaching a group, Patient Educators Update, teaching a group

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