Week #5 (September 24th to 30th)

This week, I attended a curriculum meeting within the department. Our department chair announced to the faculty that she will be hiring a nursing consultant to evaluate the curriculum. The consultant will evaluate the University’s and department’s mission statement/philosophy, program objectives, and course objectives. After the evaluation, the consultant will present his findings and recommendations to the faculty. I was very excited to hear this because evaluating the University’s and department’s mission statement was one of this week’s class assignments.

At this meeting, the faculty decided to make another change within the curriculum. In the sophomore year, we have the students complete a comprehensive demo prior to entering clinical. In this demo, the students are required to demonstrate fundamental skills such as physical assessment, vital signs, sterile dressing changes, etc. The students had a positive learning experience while completing these comprehensive demos, and the faculty decided to have them complete one every semester while they are in the nursing program. The reason for this curriculum change is to encourage students to transfer knowledge from previous semesters and promote their critical thinking, prioritization, and delegating skills.

The final curriculum change made at this meeting was to change the senior level clinical course. Currently, the senior students complete this clinical at the nursing home, but the course provides the students with minimal leadership experience. The faculty plans to change the focus of this course so the students will receive more leadership experience, for example, delegating and supervising nursing care.

Week #4 (September 17th to 23rd)

This week, I attended a conference on curriculum development, which was sponsored by ERI world. The presenter, Larry Simmons, presented a lecture on “Mapping Curriculum to the NCLEX Test Plan”. Dr. Simmons explained that the content of the NCLEX-RN Test Plan is organized into four major client needs categories. Two of the four categories are further divided as follows:

1. Safe and Effective Care Environment

• Management of Care
• Safety and Infection Control

2. Health Promotion and Maintenance

3. Psychosocial Integrity.

4. Physiological Integrity

• Basic Care and Comfort
• Pharmacological and Parental Therapies
• Physiological Adaptation

The NCLEX Test Plan can be found at the web site www.ncsbn.org

Dr. Simmons suggested that Universities match courses within the curriculum, course description and objectives, and test items to the NCLEX Test Plan. For example, one course objective in English 101 is to use appropriate sentence structure and grammar. This course objective would fall under the category, Safe, Effective Care Environment and under the subcategory, A1: Management of Care: Documentation in the NCLEX Test Plan.

After the lecture, the class was divided into four groups, and we had to analyze a senior level nursing course, Family Health across the Life Span. Our group had to make sure that the course objectives were stated in the course description. Also, we had to decide which category each course objective and test question would fall under according to the NCLEX Test Plan. After analyzing this course, we discovered that the course did not address content in the Basic Care and Comfort category. Dr. Simmons recommended that every nursing course contain some content from each category and subcategory on the NCELX Test Plan.

In conclusion, Dr. Simmons said that mapping the entire nursing curriculum provides a framework for program evaluation and curriculum revisions. In addition, the NCELX test plan provides criterion-related validity to the program. I benefited a great deal by attending this conference because the concept of Mapping Curriculum to the NCLEX Test Plan was totally new to me.

Week #3 (September 10th to 16th)

I have been teaching nursing students for the past six years. When I first began teaching, I never thought about having a student with a disability. Through my teaching experience, I have encountered a couple of students with learning disabilities, and the students were provided with accommodations (e.g., allowing them additional test taking time). However, despite these students receiving accommodations, I have found that they either failed or struggle through the course and nursing program.

Chapter four mentions students with physical disabilities (e.g., impaired vision or hearing), and I was surprised to read that these students progressed through the program without much difficult by simply alternating their learning environment.

Although I have never had a student report to the classroom or clinical setting under the influence of alcohol or drugs, I had students arrested for public drunkenness and driving while under intoxication. It was helpful to read in the book behavioral, personality, and physical characteristics that a student with an alcohol and chemical dependency would present with.

I had a student who had schizophrenia and was displaying bizarre behavior in the clinical setting. The student was removed from clinical and course for patient safety and was required to seek medical assistance. I have had many students diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and display potential violent behaviors. Through this course, I would like to explore a variety of teaching methods to assist students with disabilities to be successful in the nursing program.

Week #2 (September 3rd to 9th, 2007)

I had an “ah ha” moment after I read Dr. Anderson’s explanation between the vertical and horizontal portions of the curriculum or “threads” on how content is implemented. He explained that a vertical thread is like a silo of instructional content, a single course, for example, psychiatric nursing. Horizontal curricular content is content which is common to all nursing courses and is "threaded" throughout the curriculum, for example, communication, ethics, delegation.

As an undergraduate student, I was taught pharmacology as a vertical thread. At the past two universities that I have taught at, the content has been delivered horizontal or “threaded” through the curriculum. The students told me that they do not like the content presented this way, and they prefer the content taught as a single course. I was wondering if there is any research on a higher retention rate if content it is taught as a vertical or horizontal thread.

I previously taught at Georgia College State University, and I taught maternal child nursing over an entire semester. I currently teach at Wilkes University, and the course is taught over 7 weeks. I complained to the senior faculty in my department that I feel that it is too much content to teach in a half of a semester. I was very surprised to hear that some universities are deleting (OB/PEDS) from their curriculum. I don’t understand how this is being done because there are OB/PEDS questions on the NCLEX, and I am wondering how the students are passing this portion of the exam. Is this content taught horizontally or “threaded” through the curriculum? If so, it seems like it would be difficult to “thread” this type of content through the curriculum. These are two curriculum questions that I have reflected upon this week.

Week #1 (August 27th to September 3, 2007)

One of the suggested topics for the first week journal is to describe perceptions and possible revisions about curriculum development. I currently teach in an undergraduate nursing program at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The nursing department is considering revising their undergraduate nursing program, and I would like to take an active role to assist the faculty to accomplish this task. Currently, our curriculum is based on developmental theory and nursing courses are taught from “womb to tomb”. For example, OB/PEDS are taught in the spring semester of the sophomore year and geriatrics is taught in the senior year.

This seems like a logical method for teaching nursing curriculum; however, there is much debate among the faculty whether this is the best curriculum for our undergraduate program. Personally, I feel this is a rational method, but I may change my opinion after taking this class. Some of the faculty members feel that med-surg should be taught in the spring semester of the sophomore year and OB/PEDS in the fall semester of the junior year. The rationale for this curriculum change is because the students need the med-surg content to serve as a foundation for the specialties courses (e.g., OB/PEDS, psychiatric nursing, etc.). I have posted online surveys on WEB CT for the sophomore students regarding the possibility of making this curriculum change, and the student response is split (e.g., 50% desire OB/PEDS and 50% desire med-surg in the spring semester of the sophomore year).

I have two personal learning objectives for this course. First, I would like to analyze our undergraduate nursing curriculum and see if it needs to be changed. Second, if the curriculum needs to be changed, I would like to explore a variety of nursing theories and philosophy that could serve as a theoretical framework for redesigning our undergraduate curriculum.