Curriculum of Nursing Education

Dynamic curriculum offers diversity, growth, caring, self-care, development, adaptation, the nursing process, evidence-based practice, and a way in which relevance for future practice can be identified. By including all the important concepts, the curriculum is better able to provide exactly what is needed for nurses who want to provide the best care to their patients. The competencies that are studied and the knowledge that is required are both centered around how nurses get their education and what they do with their knowledge once they have acquired it. There are several current trends in health care that affect the development of curriculum and the outcomes of the programs nurses must take. These include understanding the increasing severity of patient illnesses in both community-based and acute care settings, along with the rising demand for affordable prices and good care. Quality assurance and safety for the patients is another area where emphasis is increasing (Billings & Halstead, 2012).

It has been acknowledged by at least one nursing educational institution that most of the changes being made in curricula today come from technology, informatics, demographics, and globalization, as all of those work together to require adjustments. Making these adjustments is important, since nurses are the ones who comprise the biggest number of healthcare providers and the most essential of services for a number of patients. The rigorous review their curriculum frequently undergoes is a way to help ensure they are taking care of patients in the best way possible no matter how things change. In the midst of all that, the nurse educator must take up the challenge of making sure essential concepts are identified and the content is streamlined so graduates are prepared for their entry into practice (Faison & Montague, 2013).

Schools of nursing must evaluate the clinical experience, too. With shortened hospital stays, there are other alternative practice sites available, and incorporating them into student portfolios can make a big difference in the quality of the care available. There are limited opportunities for things like insertion of IVs and changing of complex dressings, because hospitals have restrictions on how these can be performed and by whom. This school of nursing, though, has webinars for faculty viewing and has integrated essential new competencies into the curriculum so safety and quality of education can be emphasized. The results of that are positive, as the nurses are able to continue to deliver safe and effective care throughout their pre-licensure program (Faison & Montague, 2013).

2. A dynamic nursing curriculum has a lot of important areas. These include patient-centered care, which is essential in all curricula that involves nurses. According to Morris and Hancock (2013), both faculty and students agree that patient-centered care should be an integral part of the curriculum. There is also an agreement that it is vital for students to learn to be part of an interdisciplinary team. This area needs a lot of work, because all students should be active on the team and this is currently not the case. Another important area is evidence-based practice, but many clinical settings are lagging in implementation of that. Students and faculty generally ranked low when it came to the idea of applying quality improvement metrics, but this really should be seen as more important.

Nursing curricula should require high-quality work and a desire to improve that quality all the time, because it can affect the lives of patients. When informatics are used in that area of nursing curricula, students and faculty can all agree on the importance of them. Using a computer system is required in healthcare today, and avoiding mistakes in that area is highly important. The computer is needed for classes, as well, as there is a great deal of online learning that takes place in many nursing programs. A dynamic nursing curriculum is one that gives knowledge, skills, and a love of what they do to nursing students.

3. Students can motivate faculty to continuously strive to improve curriculum in a number of ways. These include being actively engaged in what is being taught, asking questions that require delving deeper into various areas of the curriculum, and focusing on the learning efforts that will provide them with the highest benefit (Billings & Halstead, 2012). When students also work to gain knowledge on their own and they share that knowledge with the faculty involved in their online learning, it can encourage the faculty to improve and adjust the curriculum because it helps show what is important to students. It also indicates the issues that are important for the current time period, and what matters to patients and nurses who are involved in their care (Billings & Halstead, 2012). With that in mind, the faculty of an educational institution can focus on what is most important for the students to know, which will improve the curriculum.

4. According to Billings & Halstead (2012), "Competency statements identify the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that students need to develop if they are to achieve program outcomes" (p. 150). There is an advantage, for example, to utilizing a test in the middle of the curriculum to assess competency with the subjects and to validate that the students are learning what they need to know. Students need to apply the knowledge they are gaining to patient cases, and testing them can help show whether they are doing that adequately or not. Competency statements then allow the faculty to determine what the students have learned, which will provide them with the proper way to assess and evaluate the students (Billings & Halstead, 2012).

Another advantage to mid curriculum tests is to take a look at test scores to see whether students are developing a true cognitive understanding of the material they are presented with. The students' strengths and weaknesses can also be assessed in specific topic areas so remedial assistance can be provided for those who need a little extra help. Of course, there are also disadvantages to these types of competency tests in that they take up a lot of valuable time in the classroom that could be used for further learning opportunities. By carefully considering this and balancing testing and learning properly, nursing faculty can maximize the value the students receive.