Analyzing Academic Curriculum Essay

Analyzing Academic Curriculum

Need Help Writing an Essay?

Our team of talented writers is ready to assist. We offer essay writing help in over 75 disciplines, ensuring a convenient and comprehensive solution for all your academic needs!

Get Help Now!

In developing a curriculum, various processes are undergone and several requirements are struggled to be met for it to be accomplished. This is to ensure that the curriculum is effective and that it specifically meets the criteria designed for the course. Especially now that the field of nursing has developed a “critical need for competency” (Davenport, Spath, & Blauvelt, 2009) with its continuing popularity as a degree of choice for students entering college, a well-designed course curriculum is highly sought for. To check if the developed curriculum has met certain standards academic standards, a curriculum review is conducted. In Davenport, Spath, & Blauvelt (2009), a curriculum review has several purposes: to 1) make certain of the relevancy, accuracy, and quality of the existing curricula; (2) put the curriculum in order for both the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission (NLNAC) and the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) program accreditation; (3) contribute to faculty understanding of the curriculum-building and its course of action; and (4) bring about evaluation activities as defined by the nursing department’s curriculum assessment plan. This paper will analyze the academic curriculum of the Alabama Capstone College of Nursing and observe if it follows the criteria set in Curriculum Development.
Congruency of Nursing Mission/Philosophy with Institutional Statements

The University of Alabama specifically caters to the people of Alabama, with its focus mainly on the “rural populations in the West Alabama region” (Course Outline, University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing). As some form of disclaimer, the Alabama Capstone College of Nursing has declared that they consider as “their own” the purposes and objectives of the University, “as defined in the University of Alabama catalog and official documents” (Course Outline, Alabama Capstone College of Nursing). The key concepts in the College of Nursing’s mission and philosophy statements are as follows: 1) to provide excellent education. With the continuous advancement in the field of Science and Technology and in the field of nursing itself, the College wants to provide not only the beginner but also the advanced professional nursing practice; 2) to advance nursing. This is done through research and experiential learning; 3) to provide service, with particular focus on the influence and response to the health care needs of the citizens of Alabama. Moreover, the College focuses its philosophical perspective in: 4) the influence of the changing world to human beings; 5) emotions and its accordance to the experiences of individuals; 6) the role of emotions in decision-making; 7) the dynamism between development and adaptation, as well as 8) individuals and the environment; 9) societal structure and how it identifies the diversity of goals and values; 10) learning is a variety of sorts. Some periods of learning may be long in some people, while short on others. As well, learning is affected by the “cognitive, affective and psychomotor abilities” of each individual; 11) academic obligations of the College in the facilitation of learning; 12) the application of the “ladderized” approach to teaching. The College aims to start preparing the individuals into as early as the baccalaureate level, progressing into an even more advanced stage of learning. On an individual level, the College philosophical perspective puts the brightest highlight on: 13) individual potential maximization. They believe that when faced with disease or infirmity, the individual react better to the situation, with more command of control and responsibility; 14) nursing as both science and art; 15) commitment to the practice of primary intervention; 16) universal access to health care; 17) the use of communication tools and processes in the research facilitation of information, particularly in the framework of a growing complexity of the field of nursing; 18) decision making, and how it is affected or influenced by the nurses’ cognitive and experiential-based knowledge; 19) collaboration with other health care providers in taking risks and making planned changes; and 20) Quality of Care is ensured through the dutiful practice of the Nursing Code of Ethics
Congruency of Program Objectives/Outcomes with Nursing Mission, Philosophy, and Framework

For the developed curriculum to be approved by the program accreditation committees, they must be able to fulfill these statements (in Davenport, Spath, & Blauvelt, 2009): For the League of Nursing Accrediting Commission: “The mission/philosophy outcomes of the nursing education unit are congruent with those of the governing organization” while, for the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education: “The mission, goals and expected student outcomes are congruent with those of the parent institution and consistent with relevant professional nursing standards and guidelines for the preparation of nursing professionals.” Since the curriculum was said to be accredited by the CCNE, the author has chosen to focus on this type of accreditation program. According to the CCNE’s “Proposed Standards for Accreditation of Baccalaureate and Graduate Nursing Programs” (2005), there are four (4) standards to be considered in reviewing a curriculum. Let’s focus first on the First Standard, Program Quality: Mission and Governance. In Section I-F of this Standard, the key element is described by: “Policies of the parent institution and the nursing program are congruent with and support the mission, goals, and expected outcomes of the program; these policies are fair, equitable, published, and are reviewed and revised as necessary to reflect ongoing improvement. These policies include, but are not limited to, those relative to student recruitment, admission, and retention.” The University Of Alabama College Of Nursing has a total of ten program objectives. So far, these objectives still coincide with the Nursing mission, philosophy and framework of the College. The common elements between the objectives and the mission/philosophy statements still find: 1) use of experiential learning in aid of decision-making; 2) application of critical thinking; 3) the appropriateness of communication techniques that ultimately helps in 4) creating connections with other health care providers; the assumption of responsibility for 5) personal and 6) professional growth and decisions; 7) practice of the different levels of disease and infirmity prevention with proper regard to ethics and legality; and also in the demonstration of 9) leadership and 10) caring behaviors.
Congruency of the Nursing Mission, Philosophy, and Framework with Professional Standards

Viewed as the top choice as the standards committee, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) has formulated several standards measurement for various health care programs, inclusive of which is the publication “The Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice” (by AACN, 2008). Recall that the University’s purposes and goals are said to be accepted without questions by the whole of the Alabama Capstone College of Nursing. The philosophy integrates the formation of knowledge on the context of experiential learning and cognition. The key elements were highly delineated, with proper emphasis on the building of the individual’s life perspectives. The College also wants their students to be able to compete and put up with other baccalaureate degree holders and health care providers. The AA

Analyzing Academic Curriculum