Facilitating transformation through collaboration.

Abstract

The philosophical underpinnings of transformative education were utilized to redesign a course taught to special education majors and nursing students at a rural southeastern university. The main goal when restructuring the class was to develop a course that would encourage communication and collaboration between education and nursing majors within the school community. The current course, "Health Care Perspectives of Exceptional Students," focuses on specific health care topics, with nurse faculty presenting the health care aspects and education faculty discussing educational implications for the classroom teacher. Every class includes dialogue and activities that require interaction. The last two classes are devoted to first-aid training and CPR certification. During the evaluation phase of the course, both education and nursing majors responded positively to the question of whether or not medically fragile children belong in the classroom. Furthermore, they saw the need for communication and collaboration between the classroom teacher and the school nurse as essential for effectively serving the medically fragile child in the school setting.