Facilitating peer group teaching within nurse education

The following article explains the use of peer tutoring as a method for developing teaching skills amongst student nurses in nurse education.

Abstract

Nurse teachers have an obligation to explore every teaching and learning method in order to prepare students to be able practitioners. In the wider educational field peer tutoring has been used to foster a deeper understanding of a subject area. Experiments using this method have been carried out extensively in America and are becoming more widespread in this country; however very little material is available on the use of this method in nurse education. The following article explains the use of peer tutoring as a method for developing teaching skills amongst student nurses. Two groups of learners were used in this exercise, the senior learners acting as peer tutors. Evaluation by nurse teachers and both groups of learners was favourable and the peer tutors were able to identify the benefits they received from the exercise.