Christy’s Reflections

As I entered the classroom on Thursday, Dr. Carter did not disappoint me. She had rearranged the room, quite uniquely. It looked like we were going to sit around the campfire, and that is what we did. We sat in a circle and shared our educational biographies. It was interesting to see the common themes that emerged. The similar educational situations that we had experienced. Sometimes a person can feel like they are all alone but when we look around we can see that we have alot in common with others.

I enjoyed studying about the brain. It is encouraging to know that I will have the ability to learn for many years to come. I do feel that learning a physical skill can be limited by little things like arthritis or injuries. The brain can only compensate for so much. It was interesting to learn about the networking that is created in the brain and how future learning can utilize this to enhance learning. What will science discover tomorrow?

Learning styles are varied and to understand them is to the educators advantage when teaching a course. The educator can adjust their course to address the learning styles present. After taking the Kolb Learning Style Inventory the results indicated that I have an accommodating learning style. I actually agree with the results for many situations, but I feel I use parts of all learning styles. I can’t help but feel insulted that I was not a thinker.

I can see the accommodating style emerge when I work in groups or teams. I enjoy leading and organizing the team in order to get the task completed.The varied learning styles keep the team balanced and provide needed input for a successful team. I am impatient when working with groups when they spend too much time sitting around talking and never appear to accomplish anything(I suppose these are the assimilation and converging people). If the group has a solution in mind, I say let’s try it. If this does not work then back to the drawing board. I am a “hands-on” kind of person. I do not mind jumping in and working on a solution. An example could be equipment failure. If I cannot fix the equipment then we switch modes of teaching from power point to posters, handouts, discussion and the text book. I try to be flexible and adapt to the given situation.

Recently I took a course in Dental Anesthesia. After literally hours of lecture we proceeded to the clinic to practice what we learned. I found it very difficult to understand exactly where we were going to place the needle even though I saw numerous photographs. Once in the clinic one look was worth a thousand photos. One injection was a greater learning experience than all the hours of lecture. Hands-on learning is definitely a comfortable learning style for me. I can see where developing the other learning styles would strengthen me and make me a balanced learner, but will take work on my part. Knowledge of the different learning styles will help me as a leader of the group to guide the group through the phases of the learning cycle.

Last class we broke up into groups and began discussing our educational biographies. Since i had not given it much thought i found it difficult to start off with any continuity. I was jumping all around my life, reflection on all kinds of experiences. I suppose that was the purpose of the experience. To get us thinking or remembering. During this past week i have had more time to reflect and it has been fun to see what things come to mind. One of the negative things i experienced is the insecurities i encountered daily. I was not a bright student and had to work for every grade i got and my parents were always pushing for A’s. unfortunately i disappointed them regularly. I was happy with a B. After taking the Kolbs learning Style inventory i could definitely see the accommodiating style through out my education. When i had projects to work on i usually made A’s because that was something i could work on with my hands, along with a short paper. I still have a few more days to stir up memories. I cannot wait to see the final paper

McGuire VA Medical Center, my place of employment, is an institution that necessitates and encourages education. This institution requires employees to take 40 hours of on line education annually.  The employer encourages individuals to advance their level of education by achieving advanced degrees. This is accomplished by allowing the employee time off from work with compensation while providing for transportation to the educational site. Limited funding is available for tuition.

Barriers that exist at my institution vary by the level of employment. The higher level of employees, dentists or dental hygienist, has continuing education requirements to keep their licensure thus more courses are available for them to take. The dental assistants, which are at a lower paying level, do not have these requirements therefore not as many courses are offered at the job site or in the community.  Another barrier for education can be time because many of the courses are offered on the weekends. Finances can be a barrier especially for those employees who earn less, especially if the courses are not be paid for by the institution.

After 31 years of employment at the VA hospital I have seen a change in the demographics of the employees at the dental clinic. Employees initially started at a young age and worked until retirement, but today you see employees starting at an older age. An example would be the dentist. They have served our nation as military dentistry for at least 20 years, retired and now are starting a second career at the VA hospital. Typically theses dentist will only work 10 years before retiring, therefore the training and knowledge that is required for acclimate these people to our institution to treat this special population will have to be repeated often. The lower salaried employees do not stay with the VA until retirement. The reason seems to be that the positions in the dental service are stagnant and with no opportunity for advancement. Today’s employees are single parents that need an opportunity to advance and increase their salary.

At our hospital we are treating the newly wounded solders from Iraq and Afghanistan. They receive their initial treatment in the fields of war, transfer to Germany and then to military hospitals in the United States. Eventually, they arrive at the VA Medical Centers for the completion of their long term medical care. The problem that exists is that when they arrive at the VA hospitals; the medical staff does not know what kind of treatment the patients have previously received. The globalization of medicine has created a solution to the problem. Technology has found a way to make all the medical records available to all the VA institutions. This allows for through and more complete care to be given to the patients.

My home situation is a fortunate one. My spouse is supportive of my desire to expand my education. He is willing to help with the house hold chores. He also spoils me by cooking dinner thus allowing me to do my reading assignments, write blogs and papers. Without his support returning to college would definitely be difficult. My largest personal barrier would have to be being out of school for thirty years. It is taking an extra effort to learn the new form of writing papers and making myself stick to a schedule for reading material and papers.