The Student-Discussant Role in Doctoral Education: A Guidebook for Teaching and Learning

Marie N. Fongwa

Jun 2022 · Spears Books

About this ebook

Are you a course instructor in a doctoral program and exploring ways to stimulate student learning? Do your course evaluations include comments like, “this course is boring and/or the instructor should just place the lecture power-point slides online for students to review them?” Are you interested in improving your students’ evaluation of the courses you teach? If your answer is a Yes to any or all the questions, then this book is for you. It provides you with a crucial innovative approach that has been tested for years by the author and found to work. It will positively turn things around for you and your students. The student-discussant role guidebook will get you excited about motivating your students to get involved in their own learning and become active in the teaching and learning process. Results are witnessed in students’ satisfaction with their own learning and in real time demonstrations of organizing and oral presentation skills; boredom is replaced by fun and excitement in the classroom; self-improvement, self-assurance and collegiality are promoted. The instructor’s reward is a significant improvement in his/her student course evaluation scores.

About the author

Marie Ngetiko Fongwa, PhD, MPH, MSN, RN, is professor in the doctoral programs (Doctor of Nursing Practice, DNP and Doctor of Philosophy, PhD), Graduate Programs, School of Nursing, Azusa Pacific University (APU), California, USA. Dr. Fongwa has taught at the APU School of Nursing since 2010. Born and raised in Cameroon, she trained initially as a nurse-midwife in her native Cameroon and then proceeded to obtain a bachelor’s degree in Health Science and a Master’s in Public Health, focusing on health education from San Jose State University in 1983 and 1985 respectively. Dr. Fongwa later earned another master’s and PhD degrees in nursing at the University of California San Francisco in 1994 and 1998 respectively. Her dissertation focused on the quality of care from African Americans’ perspectives. She completed a two-year National Institute on Aging (NIA) funded postdoctoral research program in 2000 during which she developed a patient satisfaction instrument (in the public domain), sensitive to African Americans and Whites along with replicating her dissertation research with Latino Americans. She taught at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), School of Nursing from 2001 through 2009. Cultural sensitivity and competence are crucial concepts in Dr. Fongwa’s research on quality of care and patient satisfaction with care received. Her recent studies focus on increasing adherence to treatment recommendations for hypertension in African American women. A second instrument in her tool development endeavor measures adherence to treatment factors in African American women with hypertension. Dr. Fongwa has published as primary and co-author in several peer-reviewed journals. She enjoys working and mentoring students to achieve their academic goals.