Obstetrical staff nurses experiences of clinical learning.
The clinical learning experience is used in nursing programs of study worldwide to prepare nurses for professional practice. This study's purpose was to use Naturalistic Inquiry to understand the experiences of staff nurses in an obstetrical unit with undergraduate nursing students present for clinical learning. A convenience sample of 12 staff nurses, employed on a Family Birth Center, participated in semi-structured interviews. The constant comparative method as modified by Lincoln and Guba was used to analyze data. Five themes related to staff nurses experiences of clinical learning were identified: Giving and Receiving; Advancing Professionally and Personally; Balancing Act; Getting to Know and Working with You; and Past and Present. This research highlights staff nurses' experiences of clinical learning in undergraduate nursing education. Staff nurses exert a powerful, long lasting influence on students. A need exists to prepare and judiciously select nurses to work with students. Clinical agencies and universities can take joint responsibility providing tangible incentives, financial compensation, and recognition to all nurses working with nursing students.
A window on our teaching practice: Enhancing individual online teaching quality though online peer observation and support. A UK case study.
This article provides a practical exploration of the conduct and outcomes a case study in which the process of peer observation in online learning and teaching is articulated and shown to be relevant to the enhancement of online learning and teaching in health and other educational contexts. Copious literature on the subject of peer observation and a small body about online peer observation suggests a variety of different approaches which lend themselves to the complexities of health education settings. The practical example described here was conducted in the UK. The authors, lecturers from two different departments in the same university, shared the new experience of online peer observation. Following face-to-face discussion of areas we wished each other to explore we undertook a documented review of a specific aspect of each others' chosen learning activities. This led to further peer-support and discussion. The paper is illustrated with examples of our review and the discussion which followed which we hope will illuminate the process for other practitioners as well as stimulate research and further debate and discussion.
The fragmentation of small asteroids in the atmosphere
The fragmentation of a small asteroid in the atmosphere greatly increases its cross-sections for aerodynamic braking and energy dissipation. The differential pressure across a meteoroid disperses its fragments at a velocity that increases with atmospheric density and impact velocity and decreases with meteoroid density. At a typical impact velocity of 22 km/s, the atmosphere absorbs more than half the kinetic energy of stony meteoroids with diameters, D M < 220 M AND IRON METEOROIDS WITH D M < 80 m. The corresponding diameter for comets with impact velocity 50 km/s is D M < 1600 m. Most of this energy dissipation occurs in a fraction of a scale height, which causes large meteoroids to appear to »explode« or »flare« at the end of their visible paths