Developing Curriculum Chapter 9

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Developing Curriculum Chapter 9

• Curriculum Frameworks can be used to
  Conceptualize and organize delivery of knowledge,
  values, beliefs, and skills.
• Historical factors have affected the design of
  nursing curricula.

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Curriculum Frameworks

• Curriculum is designed to achieve desired
  educational outcomes.
• Frameworks evaluate outcomes and modify
  curriculum accordingly.

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Curriculum Frameworks

• Facultys philosophical beliefs and values
  provide basis for organizing framework.
• If curriculum exists as a means for creating
  access to to knowledge about the phenomena of
  interest or importance to the discipline,
  organizing frameworks provide the logical
  structure for cataloging and retrieving
  knowledge. (Apple 1979)

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Purposes of Organizing Frameworks for Curriculum

• To design a mental picture that is meaningful to
  both student and faculty when determining what
  knowledge is important to nursing and how that
  knowledge should be defined, categorized, and
  linked with other knowledge.

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Purposes of Organizing Frameworks for Curriculum

• Frameworks represent the domain of nursing
• Frameworks represent what concerns nurses
• Frameworks represent how nurses interact with
  patients

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Developing an Organizing Framework for Curriculum

• Build framework on a nursing theory
• Select concepts from a variety of models

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Developing a Single Theory Framework

• Develop a visual image to go along with the
  philosophy
• Use a single image with mutually understood
  vocabulary
• Downside One theory may not match everyones
  views

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Developing an Eclectic Framework

• Use a combination of theories
• Downside discourages a comprehensive nursing
  theory
• Important to clarify concepts to assure mutual
  understanding

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Designing a Graphic of the Framework

• Use graphics to further illustrate the concept
• Especially useful for complex or abstract ideas
• Frameworks should be holistic in their basis

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Guiding Principles for Developing a Curriculum
Framework

• Choose concepts that reflect faculty beliefs
• Explain the concepts clearly
• Show how the concepts tie together

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The Role of Outcomes and Competencies in
Curriculum Frameworks

• Outcomes - the characteristics students should
  display
• Competencies - the behaviors needed to develop
  the outcomes
• Outcomes determine professional accountability

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Identifying Curriculum Outcomes

• Define desired characteristics of nursing
  graduates
• Model for curriculum development should be broad
  and nurturing
• Outcome assessment determines the success of the
  schooling

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Identifying Curriculum Outcomes

• Curriculum design should focus on skill needs of
  a professional nurse
• Learning traditionally seen as orderly, now seen
  as chaotic
• Helpful to use end-stage curriculum development

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Identifying Curriculum Outcomes

• Use outcomes to determine core characteristics
  (desirable qualities in grads.)
• Describe context where the qualities should occur

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Identifying Competencies

• Competency Statements identify the knowledge,
  skills, and attitudes students need to develop to
  achieve program outcomes.
• Important to the assessment process
• Attention should given to determining the right
  student, the right level of behavior, and the
  right content of the behavior.

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Identifying Competencies contd

• The level of behavior relates to the level of
  learning or performance at which the behavior is
  to be demonstrated.

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Undergraduate Nursing Outcomes

• Receive a generous orientation to the
  intellectual expectations, curriculum rationale,
  and learning resources of the institution.
• Acquire specific skills of thought and
  expression.
• Learn about another culture and the diversity
  that exists.
• Integrate ideas form across disciplines.
• Study beyond major.
• Senior seminar/final project.
• Coherent course of study.

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Guidelines for Writing Outcomes

• Carries out procedures ordered for assigned
  client.
• Modifies a standard plan of care consistent with
  desired client care outcomes.
• Develops care plans that reflect the individuals
  goals of the client and desired medical treatment
  goals.

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Leveling Competencies

• Learning occurs at various levels, and the level
  of learning needs to be explicitly stated in the
  competencies faculty generate.
• Consider the ability of the learner.
• Learning environment is also key.