A reflective teaching-learning process to enhance personal knowing.

PERSONAL KNOWING has been identified by Carper as one of the patterns of knowing essential to the "kinds of knowledge that are held to be of most value in the discipline of nursing" (1, p. 19). Carper emphasizes that patterns are interrelated to form a whole of knowing. Along with empiric, esthetic, and ethical knowing, personal knowing is a characteristic way of thinking about nursing. Chinn and Kramer elaborate on personal knowing as "the fundamental process of becoming a whole, aware self and of knowing the other as valued and whole" (2, p. 167). Personal knowing is enhanced when reflecting on the meaning of self in relationship with others. It is developed through the processes of opening and centering and affirmed through response and reflection. Polanyi asserts that all knowing is personal, and that personal knowing includes a tacit and explicit dimension (3). Knowledge held tacitly remains hidden and develops into more explicit awareness as one engages in reflective thinking (4). The teaching-learning process described in this article is based on the premise that personal knowing lies tacitly within. The process of reflecting on a personal difficulty can spark an awareness of self in relationship with others. The aim of this learning opportunity is to invite students to develop a deepened awareness of self, through resonating with their lived experience, and to trust insights gained in the process. Time-Pressured Busyness One difficulty common to many graduate students in nursing is time-pressured busyness. Indeed, time-pressured busyness is a way of life in today's rapidly changing, increasingly complex environment, where the day's events tend to be organized according to schedules, lists, beepers, and buzzers in efforts to cram more activities into available hours. For many graduate students in nursing, the passage of time seems shorter and shorter as events increase in number and complexity. Themes in the lay literature and public press refer to "running out of time," "too busy to get anything done," "getting control of your time," and "fighting for time." Living the roles of spouse, parent, worker, and student in a rapidly changing environment requires a continuous repatterning of energy. The experience of time is related to the number and complexity of events in one's thoughts (5). It is proposed that time-pressured busyness accelerates the rhythm of complexity, puts a drag on living life to its fullest, and interferes with learning and developing personal knowing. Thinking in many directions about all that one must do accelerates time and leads to the feeling that one cannot keep up. Trying to catch up exaggerates the pressure. Those in the accelerated rhythm of busyness lose the ability to see the bigger picture and often imagine that problems are greater than they actually are, which can interfere with learning. This article describes a three-phase teaching-learning process. First, students are asked to describe their personal stories of time-pressured busyness. In the second phase, common elements in the students' stories are identified. Lastly, the students engage in further reflection on the common elements. Finding the Common Elements As one aspect of learning in a graduate level course on health promotion, 30 first-year graduate students in full-time family and work situations were asked to write about their experiences of time-pressured busyness. They were asked to respond to the following instructions: Choose a situation that occurs during your day in which you experience time-pressured busyness. Focus on the time-pressured busyness and describe the situation in as much detail as you can. Let your thoughts and feelings flow forth in your written description. Don't worry about sentence structure or grammar. Just let your thoughts and feelings flow forth. The students were told that each story would be read carefully by the teacher and then analyzed for common elements. …