The Curriculum Development Stages Activities Program Outcomes Students and Philosophy.
Stages, Activities, Program Outcomes, Students and Philosophy of Curriculum Development
Curriculum development involves several stages, activities, and is guided by a specific philosophy. It begins with needs assessment, followed by goal setting and curriculum design. Activities include developing learning experiences, selecting content, and organizing instruction. Program outcomes define what students should know and be able to do after completing the curriculum. The underlying philosophy shapes the curriculum’s focus and approach to teaching and learning.
Curriculum Development Stages and Activities
Each of the steps of curriculum development will be discussed in this section.
Program Outcomes (Characteristics of Graduates)
“A focus on educational outcomes should be the pivotal point when redesigning a curriculum” (Daggett, Butts, & Smith, 2002, p. 36). The outcomes or goals of the program should be consistent with the philosophy of the faculty and should identify a level of behavior (Torres & Stanton, 1982).
For example, it is not sufficient to say that the faculty members expect the graduate to be proficient in research. Do the faculty members expect the graduate to utilize evidence in practice? Will the graduate be expected to participate in practice-based research, or actually to conduct research?
The development of educational outcomes of the program of study requires an understanding of the environmental forces internal and external to the program that will affect what outcomes will be desired in the next 5 to 10 years.
Environmental Forces and Issues
Environmental forces, such as changing student characteristics, financial influences, political effects, and trends in the delivery of health care, have a major influence on the curriculum development process. A number of sources, such as environmental scanning, forecasting, epidemiology, survey research, and consensus building can be used to identify trends that may influence desired educational outcomes.
Some of the types of issues that may need to be considered are sociological, political, and economic characteristics of the community, including setting and risk factors; demographic change; transformation of the American family; shift from resources to knowledge; rise of the global economy; multicultural diversity and ethnic understanding; and a shift from infectious to no communicable diseases.
Another environmental consideration is context of the parent institution, including mission and traditions, the target client or constituencies, geographic area, goal of the institution (teaching, science, research), financing, and accountability and quality indicators.
A state-supported college parent institution, for instance, may emphasize quality teaching at the baccalaureate level and open opportunity for diverse, commuter, and adult populations, whereas a private university may emphasize quantity of external funding for research, graduate study, and recruitment of a limited number of students with stellar academic qualifications. The mission and philosophy of the nursing program must be consistent with the mission and philosophy of the parent institution.
The institutional mission is an internal environmental force that affects all elements of the nursing program. In a study conducted in 1998 and 2003 (Bowen, Lyons, & Young, 2000), nursing program administrators were mailed questionnaires asking which courses, content, and/or electives were important in the curriculum now and which were projected to be more important in 2008.
Administrators responded that they expect diversity of the student population, informatics, health-care costs/economics/finance/financial management, evidence-based practice, management/delegation, and health promotion/wellness care to be more important in 2008. Critical thinking and the changing health-care environment were deemed to be less important.
Strategies such as simulation, case studies, active learning strategies, concept mapping, CD-ROM technology, distance learning, use of the Internet in courses, chat rooms, lusters, problem-based learning, cooperative/collaborative learning, mentoring, and video conferencing were anticipated to be used more often in the future, whereas lectures were anticipated to be used less. Faculty members were perceived to be less interested in teaching critical thinking than in promoting it.
Other future trends identified included computer adaptive testing, creative projects, critical analysis, and self-assessment, computer simulation, competency-based assessment, faculty/staff partnership models, use of computers, innovative teaching approaches, evidence-based teaching, use of adjunct faculty, use of clinical experts, and grant writing.
Support services to retain students, recruitment at middle schools, and retention of diverse student populations were other perceived trends. Environmental trends and issues influencing the practice environment also affect curriculum development.
The rising number of unlicensed assistive personnel substituting for registered nurses (RNs) and the increase in part-time RNs, have created a necessity for understandable, reasonable, and accurate delegation of tasks, for example.
Furthermore, the increasing emphasis on evidence-based nursing practice requires an understanding of research methodology. Significant efforts at cost containment, restructuring, and downsizing of hospitals, influence of political and legislative activities, increasing dependence on technology, a shortage of registered nurses, shifting population demographics, and the movement of health-care delivery out of acute-care centers and into the community are significant trends that curriculum must reflect.
Nurses in today’s practice settings must learn how to manage their time, organize their jobs in light of shifting demands, and be able to prioritize assigned tasks (Bowen et al., 2000). Reflecting many of the trends discussed above, The University of Louisville developed the following learning outcomes in its curriculum revision. The graduate will be able to:
- Communicate effectively orally with peers, clients, and other professionals.
- Communicate effectively in writing with peers, clients, and other professionals.
- Consistently demonstrate critical thinking, cognitive skills, and affective dispositions.
- Work effectively and cooperatively with groups.
- Select, use, and evaluate interventions for clients.
- Demonstrate personal and professional life skills and commitment to lifelong learning and service to the profession and the community.
- Use technology effectively in nursing practice (Freeman, Voignier , & Scott, 2002, p. 38)
In another example, faculty at Indiana University initially developed the following principles for characteristics of graduates. Graduates will be able to:
- Use resources in a more socially appropriate manner and design ways to offer services that will maintain or improve quality and lower costs.
- Improve access to care.
- Create less resource-intensive health care but more fulfilling lives for people as they age.
- Master information technologies.
- Develop practice protocols for new technologies that balance costs and benefits.
- Welcome the discipline of continuous improvement of quality.
- Understand the empowered role of the health-care consumer and develop skills to change individual attitudes.
- Move organizations, systems, and policies toward strategies that improve equity of resource distribution.
- Incorporate a more holistic perspective into care delivery (Daggett et al., 2002, p. 35). The assessment of trends in potential student characteristics is also part of an environmental assessment.
Students
By “2020, the percentage of Americans of European descent is projected to decrease from the 75.1 percent reported in 2000 to 53 percent. The number of Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans is expected to triple, and the number of African Americans is expected to double” (US Census Bureau, cited by Ruth-Sahd, 2003).
Clearly, continuing population shifts will affect student diversity in schools of nursing. In a 1992 survey of new RNs, 17% indicated a minority status (Richardson, 1998). All students in nursing schools need strong professional role models, but this need is especially important for minority students who may be the first in their families to attend college. Other considerations for a diverse nursing student body include:
- Increasingly older (adult) learners—These learners need to increase their self-confidence after years away from school in order to assume responsibility for learning and the use of resources.
- Married students with families—In the 1992 survey of new RNs, 57% were married and an additional 13% were divorced (Richardson, 1998). Married students often are part-time learners who need strong faculty-student support.
- Many students are now commuters who are geographically removed from the school campus. Identification with the school campus has been found to be strongly related to motivation and retention.
- Increasingly, students entering a nursing program have prior educational experiences, often a baccalaureate degree. These students need to have help to relate their prior education to nursing content.
- Students who have limited financial resources often attend school part-time, while working to earn tuition money and to help support their families. This is especially true of associate degree graduates.
- Men form a small but important cohort of students. Few studies have been done to identify similarities or differences in learning needs based on gender differences.
- Special-needs students form a significant proportion of the students in many nursing programs. These students may need tutoring, remediation for poor study skills, special advising, child-care on campus, and financial assistance.
Given the diverse backgrounds of today’s students, it is necessary for faculty to know the characteristics (social, intellectual, and emotional) of students; their varied approaches to learning, skills, and knowledge; and their interests and cultural heritage.
This aspect of environmental knowledge will help the faculty to adapt the curriculum to start where the student is. “Comparability among students is not a meaningful aspiration. . . . “The good teacher, like the good school, increases rather than suppresses individual differences” (Eisner, 1990, p. 65).
Philosophy
“A curriculum philosophy is a speculative and analytical examination of beliefs which are logically conceptualized…[However,] beliefs are accepted opinions or convictions of the truth that are not necessarily supported by scientific knowledge…The purpose of the curriculum philosophy is to guide the educational process of the learner” (Torres & Stanton, 1982, p. 30).
Given that philosophy faculty reflects the nature of the discipline of nursing and nursing education, it gives direction for the development of the curriculum. The beliefs affect the criteria from which to develop, teach, and evaluate learning (Dillard & Laidig, 1998). For example, a faculty that believes that its members are the content experts will emphasize lecture as a teaching method that efficiently imparts information to passive learners.
The nursing program’s philosophy is based on the institution’s stated mission, philosophy, and purposes or goals. The philosophy also includes beliefs of the nursing faculty about social and technological forces, concepts associated with learning, such as critical thinking and problem solving, multiculturalism, and communication, and about four or five concepts a faculty has identified as the characteristics of the nursing metaparadigm (Torres & Stanton, 1982).
“The philosophy provides a framework for discussion of answers to value-laden questions related to teaching and learning and a guide to all activities of the curriculum” ( Csokasy , 2002, p. 32). Torres and Stanton (1982, p. 33) identified some common beliefs about nursing that might appear in a program philosophy. These include:
- Nursing is a practical discipline.
- It involves a service to human beings.
- Human beings exist within a society.
- Nursing provides care and nurture to human beings.
- Human beings are entitled to respect and dignity.
- A society has common interests.
- The discipline focuses on health.
- Nursing involves health promotion and maintenance.
- Health is the right of everyone in society.
- Nursing is humanitarian.
- Society should be responsive to the needs of human beings. For example, the belief that human beings are entitled to respect and dignity would indicate a strong content strand of ethics in the curriculum. Basic faculty philosophical beliefs also affect the philosophy of the nursing program.
Idealists emphasize the mind of the learner, whereas realists tend to structure the learner’s environment through a behaviorist framework. Realists tend to emphasize content, and idealists tend to emphasize how students learn. “Educators using an idealistic framework expect learners to be proficient in the mechanics of verbal and written communication and mathematics, and to demonstrate a strong foundation in the humanities, including history, art, music, and literature.
Assessment strategies would provide opportunities for learners to demonstrate creative abilities within the humanities through application of the liberal arts. In the behaviorist-based curriculum and outcome assessment process, faculty [sic] help students strive toward mastery of information, with an emphasis on basic skills.
The curriculum is usually designed to progress from the simple to the complex. Scientific objectivity and critical examination are important and when students exhibit these behaviors they are rewarded appropriately. “Objective measures of knowledge are important in evaluation, and the teacher relies heavily on empirical data for decision-making” ( Csokasy , 2002, pp. 32–33).
Finally, with a humanist-based philosophy, there is heavy reliance on students’ interpretation of their learning experiences. Humanist-based outcome assessment focuses on critical thinking and application of knowledge, with the role of teacher being to motivate and encourage experiential learning that will facilitate students’ ability to seek their own goals ( Csokasy , 2002).
It is usually very helpful for the faculty to develop a glossary for the philosophy that will define how the terms are being used. This leads to a common frame of reference, and more effective communication among faculty members as the curriculum process moves to identify curriculum framework.
Curriculum Development: Stages, Activities, Program Outcomes, Students and Philosophy
Curriculum Development: Stages, Activities, Program Outcomes, Students and Philosophy
Curriculum Development: Stages, Activities, Program Outcomes, Students and Philosophy
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