You must have decided that you want to evaluate the way you teach your patients if you’ve chosen to read this article. Good for you. Somewhere is the thought that you could do it better, find another way to turn your patients on, or get more enjoyment out of the process. If any of those thoughts occurred to you, its time to start an adventure.

Why find different ways to teach?

If you do the same class, the same way, over and over, you’ll bore yourself, If you’re bored, it will come across to the people you teach and turn them right off. It may be the one-hundredth time you’ve taught insulin administration, ostomy care, or medication therapy, but it is the first time the patient has heard it. This critical information that you are about to impart may be simple to you, but it may be very complex to the patient and make a major impact on their life.

All of us have sat in a class and wondered how we managed to stand the instructor and the materials. You will notice I say “sat” and not participated. I guarantee, someone stood up front and lectured to you without any interaction at all. You probably don’t even remember what you learned, or perhaps did not learn.

Recently, I taught a fifteen-minute program every half hour at the AADE annual meeting. I did it four hours a day for three days. The last day I was dragging as the last group was seated. I looked at their faces and reminded myself that they needed this information. The moment was on and I did that class as if it was my first class on the first day. I owed them that and they deserved my best.

We have to find a way to keep ourselves motivated if we are to survive in any job. If work becomes boring or tedious, then you won’t want to continue. My advice is to put the fun in teaching and the best way to do that is to vary your teaching methods and use adult education skills.

Engage people in a variety of ways

The best way to start is to look at alternative teaching methods based on how adults learn.

Keep these six concepts in mind. Adults learn:

1. 10% of what they read. If you are handling out booklets and written materials the person will learn or retain very little. Print materials are an adjunct to teaching, not a replacement.
2. 26% of what they hear. If you stand and lecture they may be turning you off and focusing their attention elsewhere. That’s why daydreaming was invented.
3. 30% of what they see. It’s a great tool to demonstrate but not just once.
4. 50% of what they see and hear. Do you remember great details of the last movie you watched? Years ago we taught CPR by showing a movie. Scary?
5. 70% of what is said as they talk. People need to think about what they say and they tend to retain it at a higher rate.
6. 90% of what they say as they do something. Have them return demonstrate something you taught them while explaining how to do it and why they are doing it. This really brings up the numbers.

If you combine the numbers by adding activities together, you have a much better outcome.  Teach them something with a short explanation and have them explain it. Have them do it and explain it, and then give them a movie to take home. I like to give them a video of the class to take home and review. Sometimes they share it with family members. They like to tell them about their diabetes educator who is a lot a fun, but very smart of course. I have them bring in blank tapes or DVDs so we can make copies. They’re much more likely to watch a tape of someone they know rather than a stranger.

You can see that just handing people a booklet, letting them watch a DVD, or standing in front of a room lecturing may not be the way to get your message across or engage people in the learning process.

We all know that we should embrace every teachable moment and make it the time to get our point across. But do we identify that teachable moment. It’s often as simple as answering a question. What is that medication going to do for me or can I shower with that dressing on my hip? At that point the patient has opened up to you and is ready to learn. Every time you hand a patient a medication or a piece of equipment, you need to teach. That is a teachable moment.

In a classroom setting, it may be different from that one-on-one situation. If you make it interactive and fun you have a much better chance of meeting your goals and getting people to learn what they need to know to manage their health care needs.

Try icebreakers

Here are some ways to shake up your classes. I love games. When I start a group for the first time, I use an icebreaker to get them to know each other and become more comfortable. They’re more likely to share their concerns and questions in a group if they feel comfortable with the people around them. Everyone plays games at sometime in their lives and it brings back fun times and warm feelings. Be aware, however, that there are people who hate games and if their body language shows that this is a turn off, don’t force them into a situation that will shut them down.

Some examples of icebreakers are:

1. The toilet paper game. Pass a roll of toilet paper around and let them tear off as little or much as they want. Have them separate the sheets. Then go around the table and ask them to tell the group one thing about themselves for every sheet of paper they have and make sure it is about them as a person. Facilitate the exercise and you will find that people in the group have common interests and will start to come together. The 15 minutes it takes is very worthwhile.
2. What’s in a name game. Remember the old game I am going to camp and I am taking…an apple, a  banana, a cantaloupe etc? You names things in alphabetical order around a group until the last person could name everything. If not, start the circle by describing yourself with an adjective that describes yourself with the first initial of your first name. I am always Gregarious Ginger. Then go to the next person and have them introduce you and give their name in the same manner, Beautiful Betty, Silly Sara, etc. By the time you get around the group, everyone will be laughing and know the group members names. So will you! It gets everyone involved.

Games work

There are lots of ways to shake up your classes. Get a piece of wall board and glue envelopes or library pockets on one side. Put answers about your subjects in the pockets and play Jeopardy. Form teams and give prizes. I love giving prizes. It is fun, turns people on, and lets them learn the way they learn on TV. Who Wants to be a Millionaire is played at every convention I go to and doctors and educators stand in line to play. TV is one of the great educators and these games are familiar to everyone. They were also invented by experts who know what turns people on.

I just found a deck of flash cards with food pictures at the American Diabetes Association meeting. You could use them as flash cards or I decided to play Gin Rummy with them. Give the 7 cards out to each player and let them play cards until they get 4 proteins and three carbohydrates or fats. They can get a deck and practice at home with the person who makes their meals at home. This way they both learn. New game. Simple, fun. and inexpensive. You can purchase blank cards in a teacher supply store and have your kids or grandchildren glue pictures on them for you.

Get ideas from books

This is one of my favorite resources. I am sure most cities have stores that sell materials to school teachers and with a little imagination you can find things that can be adapted for adults. I recommend going to the bookstore at teacher’s colleges and see what kind of activity books they are recommending. Regular bookstores hold a world of activities too. There is a wonderful series of books called, Games Trainers Play by John Newstom that I have been using for years. I adapt them for my patients or students. Another resource is Instant Teaching Tools for Health Care Educators by Michele L. Deck. Of course my book, Patient Education: You Can Do It! has an entire chapter called “Creative Teaching Techniques” with suggestions from some of the best educators in the country.

Colleagues as resources

My friend Lorena Drago teaches how to put foods into groups. When she talks about protein she says, “If it has a face, it is a protein,” as she shows pictures of chickens, fish, ducks, cows etc. The patients never forget that rule.

Jan Norman, an amazing dietitian from Washington State, takes the egg shaped container from panty hose and attaches Velcro from a craft store. She then sticks on colored balls. The more balls that stick to the egg the higher the A1C level. This is a great visual for high blood sugar or cholesterol.

Every educator has a favorite. I have a toy foot with batteries that sings and lights up. It’s my favorite for foot care classes and wakes everyone up.

Now you really don’t have to start from scratch. If you have never developed a class or course using creative teaching, then find people who have and learn from them. I do workshops and seminars every year, but there are local people to help you. Find a diabetes educator or staff development department in a community hospital and ask to audit some of their classes. I’ve never met an educator who isn’t willing to share with another colleague.

If you belong to an organization, attend their annual conference or local chapter meetings. I suggest that every local chapter schedule a sharing session at least once a year and ask everyone to share their favorite game or activity with their colleagues. 

It is an actual job to change from the lecture mode to the interactive.  If this seems overwhelming, find someone to help you.

College students have skills that we never thought of. They can help you transfer all your materials to animated Power Point presentations that move and sing and wake up everyone.

Talk to the local college or university and offer an internship program for credit in your department. Talk to the dean of the computer graduate program or communications department. They’re always looking for projects for their students for community experience. Local cable TV stations have to donate time back to the community and may be willing to film your classes in their studios to give them a professional look.

Joy or burden?

 Patient and adult education can be the joy of your life or a burden. If it isn’t as fun or as exciting as you would wish, take a look at how you do it. Have a friend, someone you trust, sit in your class and honestly critique it. Even better, have them tape it. Then sit in a dark room alone and watch it. Ask yourself if you would have learned and enjoyed the class if you were a participant rather than the instructor?

If it doesn’t make you smile. Fix it!

Take care