The Proverbial Old Dog - New Trick Syndrome

A few years ago when I started working at the university where I am currently employed, I was curious what was in the closet across the hall from my office. After obtaining the keys from the nursing secretary, I was amazed to find some very expensive pieces of equipment gathering dust. There were two human patient simulation mannequins, two laptop computers, and two compressors on rolling carts gathering dust. It turned out that there was close to $70,000.00 worth of equipment stashed in there. The nursing faculties were using lecture for 90% of their teaching techniques while modern technology was wasting away in this nearby closet.

Human patient simulators have chests that move up and down with each breath, palpable pulses, heart and lung sounds, a bladder that may be catherized, an airway that may be intubated, and blood vessels that may be cannulated for intravenous fluids.  I asked why the mannequins were not being used for teaching tools and the answers I received were "if it ain't broke don't fix it", "we've always done it this way", "it's too much trouble to work the things, it's easier to just lecture". So, I presented my case to the nursing chair and asked her if I could start using the mannequins in the skills lab. She told me that I was welcome to get them out of the closet but that she "didn't think that simulation would help students that much". Hmmm...the proverbial old dog - new trick syndrome. I moved SimMan and SimBaby out of the hall closet and into my skills lab and started teaching Level 1 students how to hear blood pressures on SimMan's arm, and where to palpate pulses. They loved it just as I suspected that they would. Level II students were practicing their assessment skills and detecting adventitious heart and lung sounds. Using the computer, I ran a few code scenarios with the Level III students one-on-one, and they had to demonstrate that they knew what to do in a cardiac emergency. These are just a few of the examples of skills that students must look, listen, and feel to accomplish because some things just can't be learned from reading a book or listening to someone lecture.

I plan to use Keller's ARCS model (Driscoll, 2005) to change faculties attitudes and motivate them to use the human patient simulators to enhance student learning. The first step will be to get their attention by encouraging students to tell faculty how much they have learned and have enjoyed working with the simulators. The second step will be to demonstrate to faculty how relevant using modern technology is to this generation of learners who prefer technology over lecture as a teaching technique. Lastly, I will encourage faculty that if they can use a computer, they can program SimMan and SimBaby to work. It's really no trouble at all and the rewards are tremendous.

Reference:

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction, Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.