Professional Role Development and Synthesis (Capstone Project)
And Sample Teaching Plan
Jeannie Couper, MSN, RN-BC
Seton Hall University
NURS 8048 Curriculum Development and Teaching in Nursing
December 6, 2011
Professor Jean Rubino, EdD. RN
PRAXIS UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF NURSING
Spring Semester, 2012
TITLE: NUR 4XX Professional Role Development and Synthesis (Capstone) CREDITS: 5 (2 hour seminar every other week; 24 hours clinical per week)
PREREQUISITES: Successful completion of nursing courses in level 100, 200, and 300,
Leadership, Medical Surgical II, and Research
CO-REQUISITES: Community Health Nursing FACULTY: Jeannie Couper, MSN, RN-BC
CONTACT:
Office hours: Tuesday, 9:30 am - 12pm, and by appointment
COURSE DESCRIPTION: NUR 4xx Professional Role Development and Synthesis (Capstone) This culminating experience provides an opportunity to analyze, synthesize, evaluate and integrate knowledge, skills, and perspectives gained during the undergraduate experience/education into the role of the professional nurse as students' transition from college to the workplace. Through classroom seminars, simulations, and practice experiences, students synthesize and apply this knowledge base and developing leadership skills to professional nursing practice. Discussions address health policy and strategies to promote quality health care, professional organizations, staffing concerns, staff development. Students evaluate their personal and professional growth through a variety of strategies. Students will develop a personal nursing philosophy and portfolio. Learning activities enhance the effectiveness of the student nurse to assume the role of the professional nurse and prepare to negotiate a nursing position in the rapidly changing health care environment. Students enact the professional nursing role with a mentor-preceptor clinical relationship being immersed in the clinical environment for 24 hours/week (2- 12hr or 3- 8hr clinical days/week) for the entire semester. Prerequisites: Successful completion of nursing courses in level 100, 200, and 300 and Leadership for Professional Nurses, Medical Surgical Nursing II, and Research in Nursing. (5 credits)
COURSE COMPETENCIES:
At the completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Apply, as a leader, knowledge and skills necessary to meet diverse patients' needs,
required to practice nursing collaboratively with mentor and other health
professions.
2. Demonstrate safe, protective, enhancing, and preservative interventions as a novice
providing high quality nursing care to individuals, families and communities.
3. Utilize critical thinking to evaluate therapeutic interventions in professional nursing
practice.
4. Participates in the retrieval, appraisal, and synthesis of evidence in collaboration
with other members of the healthcare team to improve patient outcomes;
5. Integrates evidence, clinical judgment, and patient preferences in planning
implementing, and evaluating outcomes of care.
6. Evaluate the effectiveness of professional communication
7. Evaluate the concepts of power and empowerment, autonomy and advocacy in
managing nursing practice.
8. Demonstrate understanding of the scope of practice, responsibilities, and role of the
professional nurse as leader in practice environment (acute, community, or public
setting) within a complex and evolving healthcare system in healthcare.
9. Promote the image of nursing by modeling the values of caring and compassion
while articulating the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the nursing profession.
10. Demonstrates a dedication to lifelong learning through self-evaluation that identifies
additional learning needs.
11. Demonstrates proficiency in using patient care technologies, information systems,
and communication devices that ensure safe nursing practice while maintaining
patient confidentiality.
12. Demonstrates an understanding of healthcare policy, financial, and regulatory
environments. Consistent with the local, state, and national healthcare milieu,
provides safe, fiscally responsible nursing service to society with an emphasis on
health promotion for individuals, families, groups, communities, and populations.
REQUIRED TEXTBOOK:
Mason, D J, Isaacs, S. L., & Colby, D.C. (2011). The nursing profession- Development, challenges, and opportunities. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
All previous nursing textbooks required for nursing courses.
Students are expected to peruse literature relevant to the area of practice.
Additional readings may be assigned at faculty discretion.
REQUIRED READINGS:
Aiken, L.H., Clarke, S. P., Sloane, D., Sochalski, J., & Zelevinsky, K. (2011). Nurse-staffing levels and the quality of care in hospitals. In D. J. Mason, S. L. Isaacs, & D. C. Colby (Eds.). The nursing profession- Development, challenges, and opportunities, (pp. 301-316). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Benner, P. (2001). Creating a culture of safety and improvement: A key to reducing medical error. American Journal of Critical Care, 10(4), 281-284.
Mason, D. (2011). The nursing profession: Development, challenges, and opportunities. In D. J. Mason, S. L. Isaacs, & D. C. Colby (Eds.). The nursing profession- Development, challenges, and opportunities, (pp. 3-81). San Francisco. CA: Jossey-Bass.
Benner, P., Sheets, V., Uris, P., Malloch, K., Schwed, J.D., Jamison, D. 2002). Individual,
practice, and system- Causes of errors in nursing. Journal of Nursing Administration, 32(10), 509-523.
Needleman, J., Buerhaus, P.I., Mattke, S., Stewart, M., & Zelevinsky, K. (2011). Hospital
staffing levels and the quality of care in hospitals. In D. J. Mason, S. L. Isaacs, & D. C. Colby (Eds.). The nursing profession- Development, challenges, and opportunities, (pp. 317-330). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Walton, J., Chute, E., & Ball, L. (2011). Negotiating the role of the professional nurse: The pedagogy of simulation: A grounded theory study. Journal of Professional Nursing, 27(5), 299-310.
ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:
The Praxis Simulation Skills Learning Laboratory is available for skill review. Check lab for schedule and availability. www.mynursingkit.com
Praxis University Online Writing Lab (OWL), American Psychological Association (APA) website- www.apa.org.
Suggested additional web sources: professional organization websites: STTI, ANA, and NLN All students are encouraged to register online at the Pearson Classroom and Clinical Student
TEACHING STRATEGIES:
In bi-weekly seminars a variety of teaching methods will be used to facilitate learning including reflective journaling, student presentations, case study review, critical thinking exercises, and scholarly writing in article critiques and papers.
ACADEMIC POLICIES AND PROCEDURES:
Students are responsible for all previous knowledge and skills taught in prerequisite courses. If students need to review or remediate, they must do so on their own time, not as part of the Capstone hours.
It is expected the student will attend seminar prepared to fully participate with all assignments and readings completed in advance.
ALL assignments are expected by due date unless arrangements have been made with the faculty. Late papers mil be reduced by five (5) points for each day late including weekends and holidays.
Medication calculation test required for all students prior to first clinical day. Student to take exam online; grade of 100% is required prior to onset of clinical rotation. No student shall begin clinical rotation without successful completion of exam. Exam may be repeated a second time without remediation; a third failure on med exam REQUIRES remediation. Students are to contact faculty for additional directions.
Attendance is required at all seminars as participation and collaboration with peers are critical to the content and successful transition to the role of the professional nurse. Any student who is absent must notify the faculty via email prior to class. Make up assignments at the discretion of faculty will be required of any student absent from a seminar. Any absence on clinical day requires the student to make up the entire clinical day hours on a different date to be agreed upon by the student and the preceptor/mentor. The Professor is to be notified immediately of the absence and makeup arrangements.
EVALUATION METHODS:
Seminar and clinical attendance are required. Students are expected to meet the course requirements listed and weighted as indicated. All citations must be APA format. 6l" edition. Clinical component evaluation methods will be provided by the Clinical Instructor with mentors input and student evaluations.
1. Weekly reflective journal 20%
2. Critique of peer reviewed article (2) 10%
2. Simulation experience evaluation paper 15%
3. Case study presentation 10 %
5. Professional Nursing Organization exploratory paper 10%
6. Development of personal philosophy statement of nursing 10%
7. Portfolio 10%
8. Practice ATI exam 5%
9. ATI Exit Examination 10%
Weekly Reflective Journal
The purpose of the weekly journal is to afford the student the opportunity to reflect on their clinical practice, to critique their personal development and process of becoming a novice professional nurse, and to evaluate the objectives of the clinical experience confirming all course objectives have been met within the clinical rotation.
Course competencies should be reviewed often to assist the student in achieving course goals. Specific competencies are to be identified and addressed within the discussion of the journal entry identifying if the competency was or was not met. Online journal entries are to be completed online by midnight Friday. Entries are to be dated and limited to 2 pages. APA format is to be followed. Citation of others work is required if applicable.
Late entries are not tolerated- 0 points are earned for tardiness, 1 point deducted for delinquent entries.
Critique of Peer Reviewed Article (2)
Choose an article from a peer reviewed journal addressing an area of interest. Explore the author's perspective; either defend or refute this perspective from your perspective. Cite at least 1 additional source supporting your position. Use APA format, citing all references. Limit critique to a maximum of 3 pages.
Simulation Experience
Participation in this collaborative experience with fellow students will afford the students an opportunity to demonstrate their abilities to integrate knowledge and skills within a patient care scenario requiring the students to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the nursing process as well as their personal development and progress towards becoming a novice professional nurse in a non-threatening, controlled learning environment. A 3-5 page paper discussing the simulation case, a reflective self-evaluation of clinical practice, and a plan to address self-identified weakness is required to complete the practicum experience. Additional detailed guidelines will be provided by the faculty prior to simulation experience at the Praxis Simulation Skills Learning Laboratory.
Case Study Presentation
Review the case study designed to assist the student to see the 'bigger' picture of patient care. Students will work in groups of 3. Presentations should include use multimedia resources and provide handouts to classmates as a teaching-learning strategy. Students are encouraged to be creative in their presentations. Additional detailed guidelines will be provided by the faculty when the case is presented to the student.
Professional Nursing Organization Exploratory Paper
Explore a professional nursing organization you may consider joining. Discuss the benefits of membership, the mission, goals, leadership structure, and influence on nursing as a profession. Discuss barriers to membership, and ways to encourage nurses to join this professional organization. Use APA format, citing all references. Additional guidelines will be provided by the faculty.
Development of Personal Nursing Philosophy Statement
Students are to reflect on the past and current clinical experiences to develop their personal philosophy- a statement of your beliefs. Beliefs are divided into three types: definitions and description, assumptions, and values. Each of these is related to the 4 metaparadigm concepts (nursing, person, environment, and health). Address each of these in separate paragraph to ensure clarity and comprehensiveness. Write a 5-10 page APA style paper describing your philosophical view about nursing.
Beliefs: This should be a succinct definition (one or two sentences), followed by a broader description (i.e. if part of your definition of person was the person is spiritual being, spiritual being would be described more fully).
Assumptions: A given, something that you take for granted that it is true (i.e. individuals desire to acceptance and love).
Values: Something you consider good (i.e., desirable, worthy, or of esteem; i.e. all individuals are of value and are worthy of respect and should be treated with dignity).
Include actual in-depth examples from nursing practice for each concept being careful not to violate patient confidentiality.
The following questions below are designed to help get ideas flowing related to the metaparadigm (Hernandez, 2009). These are not to limit the focus of your statement!
Nursing (i.e., nursing actions)
What is your definition of nursing? Is the metaparadigm concept nursing an art, a science, or both? Is it a process or a product (set of tasks)? What is nursing mainly (e.g., caring, therapeutic healing, building relationships)? What is the role reflected in nursing (e.g., doing for, being with [being present with], working with)? Where does ethics fit in? Who or what is the object of nursing's concern?
Health
What is your definition of health (e.g., includes absence of disease, ability to perform social roles)? Is health on a continuum? Can clients have a chronic illness and still be termed healthy in your definition of health? What if the client's view of health and your view of health are different?
Person
What is your definition of person (e.g., set of behavioral systems, bio-psychosocial and spiritual being, and energy field)? Who is the person being nursed (e.g., client, family, community)?
Environment
What is it? Where is it found? Are there different components to environment (e.g., emotional, spiritual, social, cultural, mainly physical)? Is environment separate from person? What is the nurse's role in terms of environment? Are there internal and external environments, or is what is internal to a person part of the person?
Portfolio
Students are to develop a portfolio to represent their clinical experiences and course assignments reflecting achievement of course competencies. A succinct form of their personal philosophy statement will be foundational. Additional detailed guidelines will be provided by the faculty at the 3rd seminar meeting scheduled for February 14, 2012.
ATI Cumulative Exit Examination
Required prior to graduation from the nursing program. Students must achieve a minimum of 73% is required to pass and graduate from the nursing program. Students must remediate by way of a review course at their own expense should they achieve less than 73%. Refer to CON handbook for remediation procedure and expectations. Students may take the exam multiple times to achieve a passing grade; however the initial grade contributes to overall class grade:
Practice HESI Cumulative HESI
>95% 5 points > 95% 10 points
90%-94% 4 points 90% - 94% 8 points
85%-89% 3 points 85% - 89% 6 points
80%-84% 2 points 80% - 84% 4 points
73%-79% 1 point 73% - 79% 2 points
<72.9% 0 points < 72.9% 0 points
The course letter grade will be determined from grades received from weighted course requirements.