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Learn MoreHealthcare is an ever-evolving profession, and nursing colleges are well aware that they must evolve alongside it in order for their graduates to be successful. Still, change for change’s sake won’t help today’s students become well-equipped professionals, so much thought has to go into how nursing students are taught. That certainly includes curriculum which is the base of every program and must be comprehensive and relevant, says Belmont University’s Cathy Taylor.
“Today’s nursing students, and Millennials in general, are dealing with information overload, or content saturation,” Taylor says. “That’s true for the rest of society as well, so this is an issue that’s front and center for both students and faculty. As we listen to nurse leaders, as well as nursing students, we see the need for new skill sets and new ways of teaching them.”
Belmont got out ahead of the issue, with nursing school faculty beginning an in-depth study of their curriculum in 2014. After compiling what was being taught and looking at it through the lens of recommended skills from nurse leaders, as well as standards of care, they were able to identify some shortfalls.
“Between 2014 and 2016, they worked really hard to design a new concept-based curriculum to address those gaps,” Taylor says. “We just admitted our first cohort of undergraduate students who will benefit from all this hard work, which is geared toward concept-based learning, concept-based models that stimulate deep thinking. Students learn big ideas and how to organize information into categories. This is in contrast to traditional models where students learn facts and then they work to apply them in a clinical setting. In concept-based teaching, students build on previous learning and actively work to integrate knowledge from other disciplines.”
Integrated styles of learning will produce well-rounded grads
The goal is to allow students to link concepts to solve problems, hard-wiring the flexibility to think on their feet. Taylor is quick to add, however, that concepts haven’t taken the place of content.
“Students still have to master basic skills, so the new curriculum includes more clinical simulation and virtual practice time,” she explains. “Some of the big concepts that we will incorporate into every course in the new curriculum include, certainly our Christian perspective, which is compassionate and relationship-based, and inclusive, and that de-marginalization for patients in our charge.”
Elements that Belmont’s curriculum will hone in on include:
Teaching concepts like flexibility, critical thinking, and resiliency sounds complicated, because taking a skill vs. a practice, and creating curricula around it, is new territory. Still, Taylor says, it’s doable.
“We know that these skills are important to the patient experience and that they indeed can be learned,” she says. “We practice and model a lot at Belmont. As an example of additional learning, and with support from the Healing Trust, we recently worked to infuse empathy into our aging-adult curriculum. This involved active listening, case studies and having the students role play by assuming different perspectives. We saw significant increases in empathy scores on an established measurement tool, the Jefferson Empathy Scale.”
When the students become the teachers
Another goal of concept-based learning is enabling the nursing students to pass along what they’ve learned to patients. Some of the newest work in this area takes place around ACEs, or Adverse Childhood Experiences.
“We all know intuitively that a safe nurturing environment is the best for infants and young children, but now we actually have the science and the technology to see differences in developing brains of children exposed to different environments,” Taylor says. “We can teach parents and other caring adults to respond to infants in a way that actually builds brains and sets them up for future success and better health. This includes laying down foundations for reasoning, impulse control, and empathy later in life. Strategies for minimizing negative effects of childhood adversity are now sprinkled throughout our entire curriculum, not just in our pediatrics courses.”
A major tool of the new learning methodology is simulation, she adds, where students provide care in a realistic environment, then watch the video playback and debrief the experience. That’s paired up with another concept, the dedication education unit, where students are assigned to a staff nurse so they work one-on-one with a staff nurse. The student actually works the same shift, Taylor says, so [he or she] definitely gets a realistic experience.
The end goal, she says, is to ensure collaboration and communication with “people with the boots on the ground who tell us that students have got to know more about what the workplace is like, and they've got to make the connections better and faster.”
About Cathy Taylor
Cathy R. Taylor, DrPH, MSN, RN, is dean and professor, Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences and Nursing at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. She has held faculty and administrative positions with the Tennessee Department of Health, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, Alvin C. York VAMC and several Tennessee hospitals. Taylor has consulted with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as well as China’s Ministry of Health.
This blog post is taken from a HealthStream Second Opinions Podcast that was recorded recently. To hear Cathy Taylor’s full discussion, click here.
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View All Clinical DevelopmentMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream's solutions allow your healthcare workforce to be confident and competent with the knowledge they are upholding the highest of standards.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsDelivers everything you need to request, gather, and validate information about a provider to create a single source of truth for downstream processes.
View All CredentialingExperience standardized and centralized healthcare credentialing, privileging, and enrollment that is smarter and faster than ever before.
View All ProductsAutomated, web-based provider credentialing and enrollment software for growing medical groups.
View All ProductsNCQA-certified CVO verification services for initial and re-credentialing files in an overflow or full-service capacity for healthcare organizations.
View All ProductsSearch, review, and add providers into the Epic provider master file with our Epic app integration, Provider Validate.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All Learning & PerformanceHealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsThe leadership development program from HealthStream helps mold your high-potential healthcare employees into proven leaders.
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View All Quality & ComplianceFulfill compliance requirements with a variety of programs and courseware designed to address critical regulatory requirements as well as educate staff to recognize and mitigate risks.
View All ProductsBy increasing your healthcare staff's focus on quality and safety with HealthStream, they can help to reduce medical errors and readmission rates.
View All ProductsLearn about what HealthStream's healthcare policy management software and how it can help aid your organization efforts.
View All ProductsHealthStream's education helps address diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization, as well as promoting health equity in the communities you serve.
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View All ResuscitationIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsHealthStream's EMS Program offers a comprehensive, CAPCE accredited EMS course library that meets National Registry annual recertification.
View All ProductsNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
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View All ProductsPrecisely align staffing and needed resources to enable efficient patient flow and high-quality, cost-effective patient care.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s free nurse schedule app, NurseGrid™, is built to help you care for your staff and engage with their specific needs.
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