Date of Publication
2023
Project Team
Holly Buckland Parker
Abstract
Background: In April of 2021, the American Association of Colleges of Nurses (AACN) endorsed the Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education to inform curricular content and competency expectations for graduates of nursing programs. Nurse educators are redesigning nursing education with a competency-based pedagogical approach to close the gap between academia and practice in a rapidly changing healthcare system. Evidence reveals that active learning is a strategy which supports student achievement of competency. Despite evidence supporting active learning strategies to deliver classroom content, barriers to implementation exist including faculty lack of knowledge, experience, confidence, and skill.
Purpose: This quality improvement project sought to equip undergraduate nursing faculty with knowledge and strategies to facilitate competency-based education through active learning.
Methods: A three-part faculty development workshop was designed and implemented. A faculty focus group utilized S.O.A.R. (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, & Results) and curriculum mapping strategies to evaluate the use of active teaching learning strategies in the current curriculum with the goal of increasing active learning teaching methods by 10%. Faculty participants (n=6) practiced active learning tasks and activities to increase faculty knowledge, confidence, and skill.
Results: Curriculum mapping revealed a 75% increase of intended use of active learning strategies after faculty participated in the workshops. Faculty scored 92% on the Post-Workshop Knowledge Survey.
Conclusions: Implementing faculty development workshops is essential in moving nursing curriculum toward competency-based education with active learning. Implications for sustainability of active learning strategies include the development of super-user faculty to train-the-trainer, drop-in learning sessions and ongoing faculty active learning workshops.
Document Type
Project
Recommended Citation
Monforte, Kathleen and Keiffer, Melanie, "Examining and Improving Active Learning Strategies in an Undergraduate Nursing Curriculum" (2023). College of Nursing and Health Sciences Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Project Publications. 135.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/cnhsdnp/135