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Does this describe your bulletin board?
"The announcements on our bulletin board
Grow tattered, worn, and brown,
For everybody puts the bulletins up,
But nobody takes them down."
The author of this little verse may never have walked a hospital corridor, but his idea could have come from observing some hospital bulletin boards. Although we may deplore the state of many bulletin boards in our institutions, we frequently fail to appreciate their possibilities as teaching tools. To some extent, we have become so enamored with the more complex visual aids that we often overlook some of the familiar older resources that may be even more effective for some purposes than the newer learning aids.
Bulletin boards - or tack boards, as they are often called when used for teaching purposes - are readily accessible to both inservice educators and nurses conducting continuing education programs. We are all familiar with the use of the bulletin board for posting notices, but may overlook its many possibilities as a teaching device for nursing and other hospital personnel and for patients.
PURPOSES OF BULLETIN BOARDS
Within an institution or agency, bulletin boards assist in normal communication from administration to staff, among various departments and staff members, and to and from patients, such as written expressions of appreciation. Notices about classes, committee meetings, or lectures alert the staff to coming events, both within and outside the institution. In effect, these bulletin boards serve as message centers.
In contrast, the teaching bulletin board contributes to the knowledge of the staff in a very tangible way. An imaginative nurse can develop appropriate teaching bulletin boards for patients and visitors; in strategic locations in waiting rooms and lobbies, these tools can reach and teach a captive authence.
Ideally, a teaching board should be separate from the message board; if bulletin boards are in short supply, separate the teaching section from the message section by a broad red ribbon or thick yarn or other obvious means. For example, this may be appropriate for the one targe bulletin board outside the cafeteria line - a useful place for both types of information, since those standing in line are a captive authence.
The teaching bulletin board can provide an introduction to an upcoming educational session, and...