Suggest an additional strategy each colleague did not consider and explain how and why you think it may contribute to their success as an online doctoral student.

  

Amy 

  Working as a manager in an Employee Health clinic, my responsibilities vary substantially from one day to the next.  One of the strategies I consistently use in my role is prioritization and planning.  Being able to prioritize tasks efficiently helps me to stay on task and allows me to meet deadlines.  Time management skills will also help to me navigate through this course to make sure I allow enough time to complete assignments and meet the requirements for posting on the discussion board.

       Another strategy I employ day-to-day in my professional role is effective communication.  A quick daily huddle with my staff.  This allows me to do a quick touch base with the employees, communicate any important issues, and presents an opportunity to ask questions.  I feel that communication is very important to an early morning huddle helps to start the day off right.  Communication is an “exchange of information, thoughts, and feelings through a variety of mechanisms” (AACN, 2021).

       One strategy that I think would be beneficial for me to adopt is studying.  I am so used to researching quickly using technology or finding answers to questions quickly online and moving on, that I don’t take the time to read through everything thoroughly.  Taking time to read through the entire resource, as well as additional information would be beneficial for me.

Aaron 

The strategy I have utilized most in both my academic and professional career is time management.   Time management refers to planning, prioritizing, and scheduling of tasks to create work efficiency in an environment of competing demands (Comstock, 2023).  As I am currently preparing for boards, my professional career is still at the bedside as a registered nurse.  Since I became a nurse, I have worked in the ICU, with the occasional float to ER, Med/Surg, Telemetry, or Endoscopy while on travel assignments.  I had to learn early in my professional career to manage my time, as things can change drastically in the hospital.  I learned early on in my career that I had a massive influence on my days flow, in that the quicker I performed my daily duties, the more time I had for more enjoyable activities, getting to know the patients and their families, helping other nurses, as well as learning more about the patient’s medical history to better provide care for them.

           The one strategy I have yet to master is studying.  I have found that I am easily distracted, so having a 6-month-old daughter at home will make it exceptionally difficult to stay focused.  During previous semesters, my fiancé would go in the other room or go stay with her sister and allow me to block out the world and focus.  As I write this entry, my daughter is screaming at the top of her lungs and banging her toy on the hardwood floor. 

To help myself with my study habits, I will be looking into metacognitive awareness.  According to Fergus, there was some evidence supporting metacognitive awareness in relation to methods such as self-testing and spacing out studying sessions (2022).  Metacognitive awareness refers to one’s ability to plan, manage, and assess his own learning processes (Karaoglan-Yilmaz et al., 2023).  Knowing how to improve the quality of my studying, not just trying to increase the time, will hopefully help my study habits as well as improve my studying efficiency. 

I keep telling myself that I am smart enough to get into the program, I need to improve myself to maintain my status and to thrive within the program.  Utilizing metacognitive awareness will help me study more efficiently, and effectively, while not necessarily needing to increase the amount of studying.  The responsibilities in life continue to grow, but there remain only 24 hours in a day to complete them.