‘Implementing sustainable practice both operationally and in the curriculum undoubtedly poses challenges for any school or department within the Polytechnic’ (Mann & Elwood)
For me the challenge of implementing sustainability is the fact that sustainability means different things to different people and in various contexts. A more sustainable practitioner in terms of lecturing veterinary nurses involves two key aspects:
1. Managing workload, ie: working smarter, making what I do count across courses and across years.
- Using the TED ed resource as a formative assessment in sustainable in terms of workload, once I have set it up (using someone else’s high quality animation of wound healing stages) it can be rolled out in future courses. It may well be a relevant addition to the equine element of the RAT course.
- Adobe sessions reach a high number of students at the time and can be recorded for the rest and perhaps for future years.
- Forums reach many students but can be monitored as a once daily email digest.
Lockwood (2005) warns against generating over long courses, the problem is one I struggle with. Currently, Veterinary Nurses in NZ are permitted to practice with a Certificate in Veterinary Nursing (one year). Internationally Veterinary Nursing is a two or three year course. This is a problem with the course design of the National Certificate. I have had the tendency to try to cram in Diploma level material to the Certificate course, this is of course a mistake and causes students to feel overwhelmed and disengage. Being aware of this and leaving out more advanced material will certainly improve sustainability of workload for both myself and students.
2. Working with students to understand and introduce sustainable ideas around veterinary practice.
- Health promotion and preventative healthcare, nutrition, parasite control, weight management, exercise.
- Reduce reuse and recycle.
- Educate about the preventable health problems bred into pedigree dogs.
Lockwood, F. (2005) ‘Estimating student workload, readability and implications for student learning and progression.’ Manchester Metropolitan University. Available at:
Accessed on 19.6.12
Mann & Elwood (No Date) A Simple Pledge. Available at:
Accessed on 15.6.12
totally agree with what you say - and the whole NCVN issue needs looking at so our graduates are robust in an international sense. And this accordingly makes sustainability (for you, for them - workload etc) much more achievable... rather than, as you say, cramming Dip stuff into Cert level, whilst trying to improve knowledge...
ReplyDeletepedigree dogs... I await with anticipation your engagement with this area.
HB
Yes the temptation is to add more to programmes to raise the bar. Cat, you sound like you are well aware of the issues associated with sustainability. Also the more you overload the students, the more that you as a teacher have to work harder finding and developing resources etc.
ReplyDeleteHave you thought about how you could get students doing more of the work creating their learning rather than you doing it all while at the same time keeping their learning fun and with a reduced load? What a challenge...the secret could lie with your planned new topics and how you approach offering them.