Diabetes Education
Community Teaching
Due: April 13, 2014

Diabetes Power Point at QCP
This diabetes power point was presented at an adult community center in Queens, New York called QCP. This power point highlights the importance of educating yourself on disease and more specifically diabetes. Unlike other diseases that can be managed using only medication, diabetes requires day to day knowledge of the disease including nutrition, exercise and different levels of medication. Type II diabetes can also come on later in life based on diet and exercise or lack thereof. Therefore this power point presentation was important to help people understand how to deal with diabetes and how to prevent diabetes. This teaching plan includes education for both prevention and management of the disease. The power point presentation first describes what type of disease that diabetes is and what exactly the symptoms are. The teaching plan goes on to discuss the three different types of diabetes including Type I, Type II and gestational diabetes. Following along the teaching plan teaches how diabetes is diagnosed and what type of symptoms people have when they have diabetes. This helps people better understand the disease and what their symptoms mean and what causes it. The teaching plan is careful to differentiate between pre-diabetes and diabetes to make sure that people understand the difference before they experience the full blown disease. My teaching plan includes simple learning devices to help the audience remember important facts including the ABC’s of diabetes management. The teaching plans follows up with showing the audience how to delay or prevent type II diabetes which is one of the most important aspects to teach the audience because it is a preventable form of diabetes. My teaching plan was to explain as simple as possible to my audience the forms of diabetes and the way to protect themselves from developing one or protect themselves from making their symptoms worst. As I observed the audience, they were very engaged in the discussion especially when it came to what type of factors affect their chances of getting diabetes. I did not strictly stay on point with my power point but I gauged the reactions of the audience and added information to sections that they seemed the most interested in. Overall, I believe my teaching plan worked well because I was able to discuss medical aspects of the disease while also making diabetes education relevant to the lives of my audience. Epidemiology is the study of how disease spreads and can be controlled. In this situation diabetes is not a disease that can be “caught” in the technical sense of the term. Diabetes is not contagious from one person to another. However, there is an important epidemiologic consideration for diabetes, especially Type II, because of a culture of obesity. There is an increase in the rate of Type II, especially in children. For my audience, I had to consider that people that had an excess of body fat and bodies that are obese were at a higher risk for diabetes. In this country there is an increase in diabetes and this is how the disease of diabetes is spreading. As part of my presentation to address the epidemiological concerns I addressed the type of test results that people can look at in order to decrease their risk for diabetes. Most importantly the numbers to watch include cholesterol and the other two big considerations are to lower blood pressure and decrease weight. I focused my presentation around delay and presentation of diabetes because it is most important to my audience and weight loss is a big part of this. The correlation between Type II diabetes and weight is a direct correlation and diabetes will only continue to go up in this country with the increase of obesity. As I observed my audience they shared with me stories of people they had known that had decreased the amount of diabetes medication that they needed to take to control their symptoms by losing weight. These serve as inspiration stories and it was very important for me to engage my audience. I wanted the audience to understand the direct correlation between obesity and the disease and as they told me these stories it showed me that they did understand. I also observed that this part of the presentation was one of the most important parts to them because they felt like this was something they could control. The epidemiological affects come from an attitude and not from a disease spreading in the direct sense of the word and after my presentation my audience understood that fact. My teaching experience did not just come from the power point presentation. I studied my audience to determine what the best topic for my presentation would be. Diabetes is a subject that affects all of us and I wanted my audience to understand this. The first time appearing before a group is a learning experience. I spent the time to get to know my group and how diabetes had affected each of them before I started my presentation. This helped them become more comfortable with me and myself to learn more about them so I could become a better teacher for them. My teaching experience grew more personal as my presentation evolved. I tend to have a very personal approach to teaching because it helps my audience remember my presentation. I found that the parts of my presentation that included personal antidotes from myself or my audience and I found that the audience related better to personal situations rather than cold numbers without anything to back them up. My audience helped me realize this and it helped me evolve as a teacher. I noticed that stories engaged the audience when numbers, which I included in my power point, did not engage them as much as the personal stories. My overall evaluation was that the experience helped me learn and it will help me develop my future teaching experiences. Overall, it was a very good experience for me because I was teaching to a group of people who were my age and older and I learned how to handle myself and handle the subject matter. Every experience teaches me more about how to handle my audience and get my point across. Another important aspect is that I believe diabetes was a very important topic to discuss because is it not too over-complicated but I also helped teach important medical information. It is always important to gauge your audience and make sure you do not go over their head. Overall it was a very good teaching experience. I was given the opportunity to hold a question and answer session at the adult community center after I finished my presentation. I also discussed with them how my presentation affected them. The community was very happy to be given a presentation on a subject that had affected so many of them. They also were a very perceptive audience and very honest. The group really appreciated the education that I was instilling on them. A big issue that I noticed was that my audience had some myths about diabetes, including that Type II diabetes was not a very dangerous disease. However, I was given the opportunity to explain to them about the dangerous consequences of the disease. It is important for my group to understand. It is also important for me as the leader of a presentation to be able to read the reaction of my group and go off of that reaction. As I spoke of above the reaction was favorable to learning about diabetes however it was also difficult for people to understand all the medical aspects of it. I attempted to break it down into very simple terms for my audience to understand but adding in the numbers especially of cholesterol confused people to some extent. There is also the fact that I was dispelling some myths that people held about diabetes. It was not always easy for people to hear some negative things and on some level I think people were very nervous about learning that not taking care of they correctly may lead to a debilitating illness. Overall though the group reaction was very good and I enjoyed teaching the group and possibly making a difference in their lives. I feel that my presentation had several strengths and weakness. Overall, a strength of mine was my ability to be able to connect with my group. My experience working in an Emergency Room environment helped me learn how to read people and their feelings. I utilized this skill during my presentation and it was to my benefit. My group responded to me and I was able to understand their emotions and what they wanted to get out of the presentation. However my nursing background could also be a weakness. During the presentation, at times, I concentrated too much on the technical aspects of the disease. This is not always the best approach especially when dealing with people who are not comfortable with nursing terminology. Another strength is my comfort level around big groups of people which also comes from my experience working in the Emergency Room. I have learned how to work in chaos. Another weakness however is my dependency on my power point slides. In the beginning of my presentation I tended to carefully keep to the power point slides but as I began to read my group I understood that I needed to use my own personal experience, their personal experience and my power point in order to do the best job that I could. I feel this type of comfort level in teaching and public speaking will come as I gain more experience and participate in more teaching activities. The presentation overall went very well and I am pleased with the job I did. I managed to convey to a group of people the dangerous of diabetes and I helped teach them something. It is important to be able to react well to the group and I learned that throughout my presentation. Each group that I teach is another learning experience and I am always up for new challenges. I learn something every day from this presentation and all my experience will help me in my next teaching experience.