Question

Old Ivy University College of Nursing offers BSN, BSN completion, MS, and PhD programs. It is located in a large metropolitan city of approximately 2,500,000 inhabitants. Health facilities include twelve hospitals, nurse practitioner clinics, home health services, and drop-in clinics. The university provides graduate and undergraduate programs to 52,000 full-and part-time students in a full range of programs.

The College of Nursing has approximately 1300 students, of whom approximately sixty percent are full-time, and these mainly in the BSN program. The BSN program has been accredited. Although the curriculum content and teaching-learning approaches have been updated periodically, the overall structure of the curriculum and the location of clinical experiences have undergone little change. Most faculty members believe that the curriculum has lost its unity and that it is time to develop a new curriculum with more progressive philosophical approaches and learning experiences.

Most faculty teaching classroom courses in the BSN program have a PhD degree; some have a master's degree. Some clinical instructors have master's degrees, although the majority has a BSN. Doctorally-prepared faculty teach in the MS and PhD programs although most without an undergraduate teaching assignment do guest lectures in the BSN program.

Dr. Lumella, the Dean of the College of Nursing, is supportive of the undergraduate faculty's proposal to design a completely new curriculum. She has appointed Dr. Beverly Eme, an experienced and long-time faculty member, as the curriculum leader. Dr. Eme is a popular choice since she teaches in the BSN program and is highly supportive of faculty colleagues. Dr. Eme begins to plan how to proceed with her colleagues.

1. How can Dr. Eme help the faculty choose a change theory to guide their overall process?

2. What committees could be struck in order to facilitate curriculum development? What purposes would they serve? How should committee members be selected or appointed? Who should the members be?

3. If some of the faculty teaching in the MS and PhD programs are reluctant to participate in undergraduate curriculum development, how could Dr. Lumella and Dr. Eme encourage them to do so?

4. What decision-making approaches would be effective for the curriculum developers?

5. What could be a practical work plan for developing the curriculum? What are the logistical factors associated with joint curriculum planning by faculty members of various degree levels?

6. What potential is there for publication arising from curriculum development? How might faculty determine authorship?

7. What resources might be needed for the curriculum work to be achieved

Answer 1

1. Dr. Eme can help the faculty choose a change theory to guide their overall process by explaining the need for a change in the curriculum. Change theory can be a very powerful weapon in bringing out the reforms in education through various strategies and finally getting valuable results capable of reforming an existing system. Since most faculty members believe that the curriculum has lost its unity and that it is time to develop a new curriculum with more progressive philosophical approaches and learning experiences, Dr. Eme can advocate for a change theory. Any change theory is a predictive assumption regarding the association between preferred changes and the subsequent actions that could result in those changes. He can explain that a change theory will bring about a change in the overall structure of the curriculum and the location of clinical experiences. Teachers and policies do have a very important role to facilitate a change in curriculum thereby benefiting the students.

2. The curriculum committee could be struck in order to facilitate curriculum development. The curriculum members should be selected from the members of Faculty Senate who are well-experienced and well-qualified.

3. If some of the faculty teaching in the MS and PhD programs are reluctant to participate in undergraduate curriculum development, Dr. Lumella and Dr. Eme could encourage them to do so by explaining the need and effect it has on the college and students, who are the future professionals. This would make them professionals capable to face any challenges in the future. More students will join the college if the curriculum is good resulting in financial and other gains for both the college and the faculty.

4. The decision-making approaches effective for the curriculum developers are:

a) Inclusive decision-making, which includes students while making curriculum changes keeping in mind the needs, interests, abilities, and strengths of each student.

b) Interactive decision-making, in which curriculum-change decisions are made only after interacting with students and faculty knowing their preference of how the curriculum should be.

c) Outcome-based decision-making, in which much importance is given to the expected outcome of the curriculum change.

5.

A)Practical work plan for developing the curriculum includes:

a) Gathering information about the students, course, and desirable outcome.

b) Designing the content by listing objectives of the curriculum with the identification, modification, etc of the content.

c) Building up the curriculum content.

d) Final evaluation of the content.

B) Logistical factors associated with joint curriculum planning by faculty members of various degree levels are equipment, supplies, instructional resources, and proper facilities.

6. The curriculum development process involves several unique experiences and undisputable/disputable knowledge that is good enough to share through conference presentations and journal articles. This potential for publication arising from curriculum development is immense. The lessons of curriculum developers in one setting is applicable to curriculum developers in another setting, which also has the potential for publication.  

7. Resources needed for the curriculum work to be achieved are:

a) Financial resources.

b) Human resources, which include faculty, students, support staff etc.

c) Physical resources including infrastructure, technology, library resources etc.