Teaching tools for the Marker Model for standards development and the Umbrella Model for quality assurance

The learning process benefits adults more when the material is presented in the presence of "positive conditions." Teaching standards developed and QA provides ample opportunity to provide positive conditions. The Marker Model is easily adapted to all practice settings and can often be taught by using unit-specific or patient population-specific examples; however, developing these specific examples can be time-consuming. Instruction is often given to groups of nurses from different clinical areas, so unit- or patient population-specific examples are therefore inappropriate. Development of the "universal" example has also provided humor for the presentation. The Head of Household Standards model and the Quality Assurance Plan for Head of Household are applicable to almost all adults and are easily understood (see boxes). They supply further humor in their "audit" formats (Figures 3 and 4).