AADE membership provides a great way to connect to a community, whether it’s within your city, state, or on a national level. Some of the perks of membership include a variety of materials provided to members, such as Clinical Endocrinology, AADE In Practice, or The Diabetes Educator Journal. Each of these publications provides insight into research, innovations, and practice happening in our diabetes education community, and can provide inspiration for new ideas within our own practice. I would like to share with you how one of these publications inspired a new way to teach the basics of diabetes management in our setting.
Last year, my partner and I were discussing changing a course taught at our facility, geared towards staff who may work with patients with diabetes. She pointed out an article entitled “Teaching AADE7 to Bedside Nurses Using Theme Based Workshops” (2016). This article demonstrated how using a fun, theme-based approach engaged learners, inspired participation, and involvement. This was the spark we needed to revitalize our own training program. We used a Harry Potter theme, and invited “muggles” into “Aspart’s School of Diabetes Wizardry”. Utilizing a sorting hat to divide participants into teams, each group had the opportunity to add various items to their house-cauldron by interaction and participation. By the end of each four-hour session our muggles are transformed into practicing wizards, now empowered to continue to utilize their new-found diabetes education and knowledge. We have had the opportunity to teach two sessions of this, with great reviews from all participants, and will continue to use this theme to engage learners. All we needed was some inspiration!
Martin, D., & Archuleta, P. (2016, June ). Teaching AADE7 to bedside nurses using theme based workshops. AADE In Practice, 4(4), 32-37. doi:10.1177/2325160316647721