Narrative pedagogies for perinatal nursing education

Abstract

Creating and providing core perinatal education to nurses within a health system can be challenging. Preparing nurses for complex and unpredictable situations requires innovative approaches to make learning meaningful, effective, and inspire deeper thinking. The purpose of this project is to demonstrate how I have incorporated what I have learned within the Nurse Educator (NUED) program into my practice as a nurse educator. The aims of this project include: 1) showing how caring theories, within the practice model of Relationship Based Care, (RBC) are utilized within a perinatal course offering to create a safe student-centered learning environment and 2) where narrative pedagogies are used to promote experiential learning and active engagement. An underlying premise of using narrative pedagogy is that learning occurs in mutual discussion between the students and teacher(s). The narrative approach, through the use of case studies and story-based learning (SBL), promote understanding by addressing the meanings of the participants' social interactions, which emphasize situation, context, and the multiple cognitive constructions that individuals create in everyday activities.