Mistakes can be beneficial

Another important experiential learning principal is that mistakes can be beneficial if students can learn from them. Whether a student is trying to put a square peg into a round hole or the student can’t figure out the final piece to solving a puzzle. We need to make sure that we don’t give them the impression that mistakes are a bad thing. To the point where they fear making a mistake. Because making mistake is a normal part of learning. If students already knew everything and were perfect they never made mistakes, they wouldn’t be called students. So guaranteed preceptor technique number 11 is normalized error. Make sure students understand that mistakes are normal part of learning. And they’re not afraid to make mistakes.

Dean Smith is another famous college basketball coach. He was actually Michael Jordan’s coach in college at the University of North Carolina. And he verbalized his view of mistakes very clearly. He said, “What to do when you make

a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it and then forget it.” If students are fearful of making mistakes because preceptors put them down or are in any way kind of sending to them when they make a mistake. They may be fearful of even trying. If a basketball coach berates players because they missed a shot. When they take a shot, they might be inclined to simply not take as many shots and avoid the reprimand that comes with missing a shot. We should want students to actively engage in the activities of the rotation, even when they make mistakes. As long as we focus on helping them correct those mistakes.

So errors are ok in practice as long as they don’t repeat them in the game. Because they’ve learned from those mistakes. We can use mistakes as an opportunity for students to learn. That makes them beneficial. Because if basketball players make a mistake during practice, the coach has an opportunity to correct the problem. So they don’t make this same mistake during the game. It’s the same concept with student in a rotation. If they’re making mistakes as long as they’re trying hard. And they’re not continuing to make the exact same mistake over and over again, that’s not a bad thing. And it shouldn’t be looked at as detrimental to their training. It can actually benefit their training.

If the preceptor sees to it that the student learns from the mistake with good effective formative feedback. If they fear making a mistake or simply going to avoid whatever it is that we want them to be doing, and that’s gonna inhibit their learning. How is assessing critical competence different from professionalism.We talked about this in the first session. Clinical competence and professional behaviors need to be equally weighted as far as important learning outcomes within a rotation. The three dimensions of professionalism that we’ve defined indicate what we might need to assess in this area. And we know that the first step of professionalism is competent. To be capable to perform professionally in a pharmacy setting is very important.

And we have clearly detailed assessment methods for identifying whether the student is developing that type of competence. But remember it’s also important that students develop people skills. That they’re able to communicate with patients and other healthcare practitioners, people in the pharmacy department. They have to develop interpersonal compatibility. So there needs to be some measure of assessment as to how well they’re communicating with people? How well they’re getting along with people? So that needs to be built into the assessment program as well. And lastly, there needs to be a measure of their reliability of their character. I talked in the first session about the need to avoid plagiarism.

So they need to understand what impact actions such as plagiarism might have on their assessment. Another example of assessing reliability would be simply as part of the assessment plan is to evaluate do they show up on time. In both in the morning and they’re expected to attend a meeting during the day, do they show up to the meeting on time? A variety of aspects of personal reliability can be built into the assessment program as well. But it’s important not to neglect these last two elements of professionalism. Their people skills and their character and reliability. Are they performing trustworthy behavior? That’s going to make them the type of pharmacists people want to work with.

And do they communicate well enough and relate well enough to other people? That they be the kind of pharmacists that people would want to work with. and that patients will connect with. As I said we need to watch out for plagiarism. Now, consider a question here. How much time and effort should preceptors devote to formative and summative assessment, in relation to other precepting activities? Give that some thought. It’s very important consideration. I would suggest that formative and summative assessment should be considered very serious. And probably have almost equal weighting to the importance of learning outcomes and learning activities. Because it’s that constant formative feedback that GPS information provided to students.

That’s gonna have a very significant impact on the extent to which they achieve the learning outcomes. Just having good learning outcomes and good activities for students to perform is not enough. They’re going to need feedback as to how well they’re doing and what they might need to change in order to achieve those learning outcomes. So they go hand in hand. They really have almost equal importance.

So our review of session 2: Experimental learning principles that we’ve covered in this session. That the students can’t get where they need to be if they don’t know where they are now. We have to have a good GPS system of providing regular feedback. And we have to be willing to offer that feedback very frequently. Because it’s so crucial to their learning. The preceptor has to communicate regularly with the students and provide meaningful feedback during that communication. We also emphasized the principle that mistakes can be beneficial if students learn from them. So we don’t want to give students the impression that mistakes are a bad thing as long as the student is committed to correcting those mistakes.

In terms of our guaranteed preceptor techniques, we identified the importance of real time feedback. Giving feedback as quickly as possible. Not procrastinating. Not waiting until the next day. But giving it immediately if it all possible. Pinpointing feedback. Be very specific while we communicate to students about how well they’re doing and what they need to do differently. Making sure that our feedback is predominantly of a positive constructive nature. And even when it’s corrective, that it’s construct. Not just to criticize or put the student down, but to help them improve. If the student truly feels that the preceptor as a her best interest at heart, it makes it much more easier for the students take corrective criticism from the preceptor.

And lastly, we need to normalize error. This is a learning environment. And in a learning environment, here is a normal process. Just like basketball players. When they’re in practice, making a mistake is normal as long as they correct the mistake with guidance from the coach. So our remaining three sessions in this 5 session series is to design structured well-organized learning experiences. How we can do that. Provide insight and strategies for bringing the best out in every student, based on how the preceptor relates to the student. And lastly, to review the traits of great preceptors and the qualities or characteristics of great rotations.