Differentiate Barriers of Teaching from Obstacles of Learning
Teaching and learning are both important processes that may result to gaining knowledge, developing skills and talents, and honing the attitudes, values, and behaviors. Teaching is the practice of paying attention to people's needs, experiences, and perceptions and intervening so that they develop new skills and go beyond what is required of them. Learning is the process of gaining new information, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences through the acquisition of new understanding, knowledge, habits, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. In the process of teaching and learning, we cannot prevent some barriers to teaching and some obstacles to learning to happen every educator and learner encounter.
Barriers of teaching are those factors that make it difficult for a health professional to provide educational services. The following include the major barriers that interfere with the ability of health professionals to carry out their roles as educators and these are lack of time, lack of motivation and skill, low priority status of client education, lack of confidence and competence, questionable effectiveness of client education, documentation difficulties, absence of third part reimbursement, and negative influence of environment.
A common obstacle that prevents health professionals from effectively performing their educator position is a lack of time to teach. Early discharge from inpatient and outpatient settings often results in only passing interaction between health providers and patients. In addition, health practitioners' schedules and responsibilities are very challenging. They are not able to provide patients and their families with the necessary instruction because of lack of time during their shifts at work. If an educator is short of time, they would be unable to offer valuable information to their learners. For the learners, time is crucial in order to better teach them.
The personal characteristics of the health professional instructor are critical in determining the outcome of a teaching-learning process. The motivation to teach and the ability to teach are critical factors in the success of every educational effort. We must note that we cannot inspire others unless we are driven ourselves. It is important to note that motivated educators promote positive actions in the workplace. The educator and learner must show respect and value to each other in order for them to establish a good relationship with each other.
In the different environments where health professionals are supposed to teach, the atmosphere is not always favorable to the teaching-learning process. Lack of space, privacy, noise, and constant interruptions caused by treatment schedules and staff job demands are only a few of the factors that hinder a health professional's ability to focus and effectively interact with learners. Another barrier to teaching is questionable effectiveness of client education. Some medical professionals doubt that patient education is a successful way to improve health outcomes. When patients do not show an interest in modifying their actions or demonstrate an inability to learn, they are seen as impediments to teaching. In addition, we can prevent this barrier to happen by questioning ourselves if what we teach is right. We can also ask our learners to evaluate us and give us feedback if we are effective.
Another barrier to teaching is lack of confidence and competence. Many health professionals confess that they do not feel competent or confident with their teaching skills. However, we must be confident in what we say and do in order for the learners to trust us. Being competent will ensure that people are well cared for and that reliable information is given. Learners tend to look up on educators who are professional and have the requisite knowledge and skills so we should show them that we are confident and we are passionate on what we are doing.
Furthermore, another barrier to teaching is absence of third part reimbursement. While nurses have been successful in securing third-party reimbursement under some health care programs, challenges such as resistance from medical societies, procedural concerns, and restrictive interpretations of state licensure laws still exist. In teaching we can also have many expenses because we need to provide the needs and materials that we can use in teaching but the problem is we are the only one who will shoulder the expenses. Another barrier to teaching is low priority status given to teaching. We do not give importance, efforts, and time to make our teaching be creative and meaningful to the learners. We do not prepare, we do not think other ways to teach, and it is like we just want to finish our job which is to teach them.
The type of documentation system that healthcare organizations use has an effect on the quality and quantity of patient education. Because of a lack of time, inattention to detail, and inadequate forms on which to document the extent of teaching activities, both formal and informal teaching are often performed but not recorded. Many of the forms used to document teaching are designed to be simply check off the areas addressed rather than allow for elaboration of what was actually accomplished. Also, we cannot document our records because we do not understand the language used by the learners. So language is also a barrier to teaching.
On the other hand, obstacles to learning are those factors that have a negative impact on a learner's ability to pay attention and process information. The following are some of the major obstacles interfering with the learner’s ability to attend to and process information and these are lack of time, stress of illness, readiness to learn issues, complexity, fragmentation, and inconvenience of healthcare system, denial of learning needs, lack of support from health professionals or significant others, extent of needed behavior changes, literacy problems, and negative influence of environment.
Due to a lack of time to learn and the amount of knowledge a client is required to learn, the learner can become discouraged and frustrated, impeding his or her ability and desire to learn. Aside from that, acute and chronic illness-related stress, anxiety, and sensory deficiencies in patients are only a few of the concerns that can decrease learner motivation and hinder the learning process. Illness, on the other hand, is rarely an impediment to learning; rather, illness is often the inspiration for patients to attend classes, make contact with healthcare providers, and take positive action to improve their health status. Another obstacle to learning is literacy problems. The clients' ability to use the written and verbal guidance provided to them by providers has been found to be hampered by low literacy and practical health illiteracy.
Furthermore, another obstacle to learning is negative influence of environment. The negative effect of the hospital setting, which can contribute to a loss of power, lack of privacy, and social isolation, can hinder a patient's active engagement in health decision-making and participation in the teaching-learning process. Another distractions for learners can be caused by noise, poor lighting, and overcrowding. Because of this, the learners are overwhelmed and unable to concentrate. It must meet certain criteria in order for learners to learn effectively. As a result, we must eliminate the factors that obstruct learning. In addition, the lack of support and consistent positive reinforcement from health providers and others may serves to hinder learning capacity.
Another obstacle to learning is readiness to learn issues. The learner's personal characteristics have a significant impact on the degree to which behavioral results are achieved. Some of the most important factors affecting educational performance include readiness to learn, motivation and compliance, developmental stage characteristics, and learning styles. When a learner demonstrates a strong desire to learn the knowledge necessary to maintain optimum health, they are said to be ready to learn. It occurs when the learner is willing and able to participate in the learning process. We must note that no matter how valuable the knowledge is, it will not be obtained if the learner is not prepared. Moreover, the number and complexity of behavioral changes required can confuse learners, and may result to discouraging them from focusing on and achieving learning objectives and goals.
Some psychological barriers to behavioral improvement include rejection of learning needs, distrust of authority, and a lack of desire to take responsibility. Some people feel that they do not need to learn such things. They declined to accept their learning needs. Another is that the healthcare system's inconveniency, uncertainty, inaccessibility, fragmentation, and dehumanization often contribute to dissatisfaction and abandonment of the learner's efforts to participate in and comply with the goals and objectives of learning.
To sum it up, we can say that both educators and learners have challenges to face in the teaching-learning process. We can see that there are some differences and similarities between the barriers to teaching and barriers to learning. It is important for the educators and learners to know and examine all of these barriers to teaching and obstacles to learning so that they can look for an alternative ways to avoid these problems. The educators and learners must work together regarding this problems so that they can also improve the teaching and learning. They should help each other so that they can have a meaningful and fruitful teaching and learning experience.
