Community Health Nursing Course Development

Part A

Course Overview

BSN nurses must be prepared to practice and function effectively in a wide range of settings. Community health is considered an integral part of the public health sector. For this reason, it remains part and parcel of efforts to not only improve the health and wellbeing of the masses, but also fend off infectious diseases. This course will equip learners with the skills and knowledge required to function effectively in community health settings.

Weekly Course Module Topics

Weekly Key Concepts

Evidence-Based Active Learning Strategies

Citation of Scholarly Sources Using APA Format

1. Definition and nature of community health nursing

Community health as a specialty concerned with the promotion of the mental and physical health/wellbeing of persons within a certain geographic region.

Pause procedure: At various points during the lecture, learners will be asked to review the notes they have made and seek clarification on various aspects of the same after discussing the lecture content in pairs.

Bachhel and Thaman (2014) make an observation to the effect that the pause procedure happens to be an instrumental active learning approach in efforts to promote retention of key concepts.

2. Objectives of community health nursing

The primary and secondary goals of community health nursing.

Inquiry-based learning: Learners will be actively motivated to share ideas about what purpose community health nursing serves. They will also be asked to float the relevant queries about the goals and objectives of community health nursing.

According to Attard, Berger, and Mackenzie (2021), this active learning strategy comes in handy in fostering problem solving and critical thinking which, according to the authors, happen to be crucial in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related subjects.

3. Stakeholders in community health

Healthcare practitioners, local government, patients, social health groups, charities, etc. as stakeholders in community health.

Concept maps: The diverse roles that stakeholders play in community health as well as possible collaborative engagements between various stakeholders will be demonstrated using a concept map.

It would be prudent to note that in the words of Carr-Lopez, Galal, Vyas, Patel, and Gnesa (2014), concept maps help to facilitate meaningful learning (170).

4. The role BSN nurses play in the promotion of community health

BSN nurses as key players in the promotion of community health and wellbeing.

Team-based learning: Learners will actively collaborate with each other in the completion of tasks meant to promote their understanding of the role of BSN nurses in the promotion of community health.

This particular method, as Faezi, Moradi, Amin, Akhlaghi, and Keshmiri (2018) indicate, has been associated with increased student engagement.

5. Community-based nursing interventions

Assessment, diagnosis, implementation; care coordination; behavior and lifestyle change; self-care support and patient education, etc.

Case study: Students will be divided into groups and asked to go through cases depicting hypothetical scenarios requiring community-based nursing interventions

Bonney (2015) indicates that case study teaching method has been shown to be very effective as a content delivery approach especially in courses rooted in science.

6. Addressing challenges encountered in community nursing

Challenges: Diverse ethical dilemmas, limited management support; personal safety; professional isolation; career development; workplace violence; overtime; low staffing levels.

Brainstorming: On this front, learners will be asked to come up with ideas on the most viable ways of addressing the challenges highlighted. Instructor will offer additional insights.

Case study: Learners will be presented with a case depicting a real-life scenario for discussion purposes. Here, an ethical dilemma could be described and learners asked to present proposed solutions.

Brainstorming, according to Goswami, Jain, and Koner (2017) is a highly effective group creativity method for the formulation of solutions to hypothetical or real-life challenges and problems.

Bonney (2015) is of the opinion that the case study strategy could be instrumental in efforts to develop the ability of learners to apply theoretical concepts in practical scenarios or situations

7. The relevance of cultural competence in community health nursing

Understanding the relevance, impact and influence of cultural as well as social factors on the delivery of care.

Role Playing: In this case, students will be called upon to act out imagined scenarios in which case they simulate interactions between nurses and persons from diverse races, religions, sexual orientations, etc.

This is a very effective leaning strategy owing to the fact that it comes in handy in efforts to promote dynamic interactions among learners thus enhancing learnt material retention (Stevens, 2014).

8. Review of key concepts

Assessment of student comprehension of key course concepts in relation to the nature of community health nursing and role of BSN nurses in the promotion of community health.

Peer-based strategy: Here, learners will be assigned tasks to gauge their comprehension of key concepts. They will then be asked to evaluate each others performance.

Ghesemi, Moonaghi, Heydari...

…as Dyson and McAllister (2019) observe, culture affects not only our behavior, but also how we relate with others and our perception of things. Thus, in my case, students could relate in diverse formats (i.e. in team/group engagements) with their peers based on the beliefs and customs they have been exposed to in the past. This would in effect affect their participation in group engagements. I am also aware of Dyson and McAllister (2019) assertion to the effect that cultural differences can also affect how students understand content, because students from different cultures may not have in common the cultural experiences needed to comprehend many texts and concepts (313).

Societal Experiences

Learners could be exposed to a wide range of social standards and expectations that in effect affect how they approach problems and integrate content at the macro level. This is more so the case in relation to student encounters with social injustices, discrimination, as well as inequality. Their insight about various core course concepts could be based on these encounters.

Life Experiences

Diverse life encounters could have an impact on the mental and physical wellbeing of learners. This is more so the case in relation to traumatic exposures and chance encounters with situations that could trigger stress and/or depression. In turn, this could affect the ability of learners to focus on their education and negatively impact their course material retention capabilities.

Part F

There are various learning theories that could come in handy in the development of a nursing education course. One such theory happens to be the cognitive learning theory. In basic terms, this particular theory, as Dyson and McAllister (2019) observe, largely concerns itself with the way a person receives information, organizes it, stores it, and retrieves it. Thus, as the authors further indicate, on this front, learners are actively involved in the way they process information (Dyson and McAllister, 2019, p. 95). In the development of a nursing education course, this theory would likely influence the choice of learning strategies to be used in the dissemination of key course concepts. With this in mind, it appears that this learning theory happens to be in favor of the deployment of an active learning strategy. This is especially the case given this theorys suggestion that in the learning process, the learner is not…