THE DIRECTOR OF

CONTINUING EDUCATION IN PERSPECTIVE

By Elda S. Popiel, R.N., M.S.

CONTINUING education service in a university school of A nursing makes a unique contribution to each of the three functions of a university - teaching, research, and community service. However, the primary commitment is the continuing education of practicing nurses. Accordingly, the main chal- lenge confronting the director of continuing education for nursing is to develop intensive and pragmatically oriented

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courses and workshops which will measure up to the uni- versitys standards of educational excellence. To meet this challenge she must know the reasons nurses seek continuing education and the types of experiences that are most conducive to their learning. She must also be able to select an appropriate staff and coordinate their activities and promote acceptance of the continuing education program by the other departments of the university.

IDENTIFICATION OF LEARNING NEEDS

Adults usually choose their continuing education on the basis of its relevance to their needs, its timing, its convenience, and its cost, with relevance to needs likely to be the foremost factor. Since adult needs, both job and personal, do not reveal themselves in visible tags that can be pointed to or grabbed up, need identification is probably the most difficult task involved in the development of a successful continuing education program in nursing. From my experience as the director of the continuing education services for nurses at the University of Colorado Medical Center I have developed some guidelines which may facilitate the accomplishment of this task.

First, the director should view the learning experiences in the continuing education program as extensions of the environ- ment in which the developed knowledge or skills are to be applied. She should therefore study the environment of the group of participating nurses in terms of stresses, problems, and unique characteristics, using a systems approach. Second, she should find out what the nurse participants think their needs are, then ascertain the extent to which their assessment is realistic. On the basis of the information gathered in these studies she can draft a proposed course for the group.

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The initial course proposal and outlines should then be tested on a pilot group. The second time around usually reveals new and more accurate viewpoints as well as some inconsistencies not previously seen. A review of the course evaluations by the pilot group and of evaluations of similar programs will yield suggestions which are appropriate for incorporation in the course. A word of warning, however: one should not generalize that the needs of one group are necessarily the needs of a future group.

CURRICULUM AND TEACHING METHODS The chief difference between teaching children and adults

lies in the application of the method to the unique characteristics of the adult learner, not in the inherent nature of the method itself. One of the unique characteristics of a group of practicing nurses is likely to be the knowledge which the members of the group have of the subject being studied. For example, the mean age of nurses attending continuing education programs at the University of Colorado School of Nursing is forty-two years. The aggregate professional experience of a group of sixty such nurse participants in a course could be as much as tweIve hundred years. A director of continuing education and her staff cannot really teach the members of such a group; they can only help them to learn. In continuing education the learners are involved in diagnosing their educational needs, planning and conducting experiences which will help them to meet these needs, and evaluating their own learning.

These characteristics of adult learners should be borne in mind by those who plan continuing education curriculums for nurses. If the needs of the nurse participants have been correctly identified, the curriculum content falls into a pattern quite easily. A major consideration in the curriculum design is

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the provision of ample time and opportunity for each nurse participant to express herself - to ventilate, procrastinate, or penetrate her legitimate problems and concerns.

Fundamentally, adults learn by acquisition and experimenta- tion. Adult learners who are nurses, are person-centered and problem-centered. They also anticipate a learning process which will yield immediate benefits. Therefore, for a continuing education program in nursing to be effective, the time between education and the application of that education must be relatively short.

STAFF SELECTION

The usual means by which academic freedom is protected do not always apply in continuing education situations in a university. Also, positions in continuing education do not carry a high degree of prestige; for example, I am suspect by many faculty members who regard themselves as being more aca- demically respectable. The resource persons as well as the staff and the program director of a continuing education service must therefore be willing to keep the concerns of the nurse participants foremost and their own needs in second place.

Care must also be taken to obtain resource people who have demonstrated an ability to teach and coach adults in the ways of integrating new knowledge into their approach to their environment. The continuing education director knows best which persons are most likely to succeed with a particular group. The advice and suggestions of the program planning committee for each course can be drawn upon in making selections, but the director must be the one to make the final decision. To leave the final selections of resource persons to others can result in disaster.

In selecting staff the director should evaluate her own ability

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to perform such aspects of her job as writing, promoting, and securing financial aid, and either seek knowledge in her weak areas or, if the service is large enough, employ personnel who have strengths in those areas in which she is not proficient. The director should also make explicit to all concerned the role of each person contributing to the course in order to minimize misunderstanding and make possible the maximum use of staff and learner time.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

The director of continuing education for nursing has con- siderably more contact with members of other disciplines in the university and the community at large than have most other members of the university faculty. She must therefore be able to deal effectively with people, both individually and in groups, and to manage conflict. Administrative cognition is a par- ticularly necessary attribute. Most university business and registration offices are basically credit course oriented, and the special handling required by many non-credit continuing educa- tion courses often seems to interfere with the flow of their operations. When planning a program the director of con- tinuing education must be able to anticipate the organizational roadblocks, wash-outs, and detours that may hinder progress. Some of these obstructions cannot be avoided, but many can be dealt with through communication and planning.

EVALUATION

Every director and her staff must periodically take a look at the extent to which both long-and short-range departmental and organizational goals have been achieved. In the Continuing Education Services of the University of Colorado each program-

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planning committee routinely holds a post-evaluation session on the just completed course. In addition, annually all of the staff members retreat to the mountains for a long weekend to evaluate their achievements as well as the goofs in programs completed in the past year and to rethink the philosophy and objectives of the department in the light of the past years experience and what can be predicted for the future. Participant responses to questionnaires, interviews, follow-up analyses, on-the-job consultation visits, staff and participant evaluations, and attendance figures are among the means of collecting data for evaluating past programs and future needs.

THE ROLES OF THE DIRECTOR

In summary, I can see ten specific roles which the director of continuing education in nursing must consider.

Adventurer: The director must give free rein to her imagina- tion. She should search for new targets and track down the nonobvious.

Mover: The director should be restless and ambitious. She should keep an open mind concerning new ideas, but at the same time she should recognize that ideas by themselves are of little value; in the words of David C. Etter they are much like computers without programers.

Actor: The directors real concern that what she is doing bene- fits everyone involved can spell the difference between rejection and acceptance. Enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm. Her enthus- iasm can assist in creating a climate for change in behavior on the part of the learner.

Prophet: The director must have the ability to gauge the winds of change, set her sails accordingly, and assess participant needs and readiness to learn.

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Student: Most of us who are engaged in continuing education for nursing have backgrounds in teaching or administration which are generally unrelated to continuing education ad- ministration. We have had to acquire knowledge of social psychology and learning theory with special reference to how adults learn and to develop skill in conference leadership and decision-making. In other words, the director of continuing education must continue her own education through courses, workshops, reading, and on-the-job experience. It is particularly important that she keep abreast of innovations which have proved helpful elsewhere. The director who stops learning stifles her personal growth and the growth of her service. She must realize that there is no such thing as a completed education for herself as well as for those for whom she provides opportunities for continuing education. Her enthusiasm for continued leam- ing will generate the quest for knowledge and new skills on the part of the participants.

Specialist regarding the customer: The nurse participants hold the destiny of a continuing education service in their hands. If they are displeased, all efforts become meaningless. One way the director of the service can try to please her public is to climb into their skins and their situations and attempt to view the programs from their points of view.

Facilitator: The most important task of the teacher in con- tinuing education is to facilitate self-directed or mutual learn- ing. In-depth knowledge of a specific subject is not nearly as important to a director of continuing education as it is to a teacher in an undergraduate or graduate program in nursing.

Delegator: The director of a continuing education program cannot be all things to all people, nor can she have all of the knowledge and skills necessary for successful implementation

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of continuing education programs. She must therefore be willing to delegate responsibilities to others. Compassionate Peer: The director must be a sounding-board for staff and participant problems and become a leader in the most comprehensive meaning of the word.

Evaluator: The director must take leadership in promoting staff evaluation, participant evaluation, and program evaluation. She must also be aware of her limitations as well as her abilities.

The faculty member of a university school of nursing who directs continuing education courses has a challenging position. The responsibilities of this form of education are great, but so are the rewards. Continuing education in nursing telescopes the teachers leadership influence, and she can view the out- comes of her handiwork with each passing day. No other kind of education opens the way for so much to be done in the enrichment of the total life experience of nurse practitioners. No other type of education affords the teacher of nursing as great an opportunity to shape the world of nursing care.

REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

*New Jersey State Department of Education, The Teaching of Adults. (Trenton: The Bureau of Adult Education, Division of Higher Education), p. 22.

2 Etter, David C., The Continuing Education Administrator in Perspective AduZr Leader.ship, November, 1967. Commission of the Professors of Adult Education of the Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., Adult Education - A New Imperative for Our Times, 1961. Kallen, Horace M., Philosophical Issues in Adult Education, Springfield, Illinois, Charles C Thomas, 1962, p. 45. Kidd, J. R., How Adults Learn, Association Press, New York: 1960. Kidd, J. R., Financing Continuing Education, New York: 1962. Gardner, John W., Self-Renewal, Harper and Row, New York: 1965.

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