NSG/532 Week 5: Delivery Modalities and Technology, sample paper

Hybrid Theory, Simulated Acute Care and Long-Term Care Clinicals: Choosing Delivery Modes and Technology for a Revised Practical Nursing Curriculum

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

NSG/532: Innovative Curriculum Design

Week 5 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The college, the program and its resources are a composite written for a model paper.

Earlier weeks of this course decided that our practical nursing program will thread gerontology through every term, shift clinical hours toward long-term care and community settings and practice clinical judgment in every course. This paper chooses how the revised curriculum will be delivered and which technologies it will use. The choices must fit our learners, serve the program outcomes, rest on evidence and stay within our budget and the state board's rules.

Our Learners

Our students are diverse in ways that shape delivery. In the last cohort, 62% worked at least 20 hours a week, 44% were parents, 38% lived more than 30 miles from campus and the median age was 29. Eleven percent spoke a language other than English at home. Many are nursing assistants seeking to advance in the same long-term care facilities where they work. A delivery model that requires daily travel to campus excludes some of them; one that relies entirely on independent online study leaves others without the structure they need.

Theory Delivery: Three Options

Face-to-face lecture, the current model, gives students structure and direct access to faculty, but four days a week on campus conflicts with work and family, and our attrition data show that most withdrawals cite scheduling. Fully online delivery gives flexibility but can isolate students, and some lack reliable internet at home. Hybrid delivery combines online preparation, such as short recorded lectures, readings and quizzes, with fewer, more active campus days used for case studies, clinical judgment practice and questions.

I recommend hybrid delivery for theory, with two campus days a week instead of four. Online components will be short, captioned and viewable on a phone, and the college will lend laptops and hotspots to students who need them. Campus days will be used for unfolding case studies built on the clinical judgment model, which students said in Week 3 they needed. The value of hybrid delivery lies less in the online half than in what it frees the campus days to do.

Skills and Clinical Delivery

Skills labs and clinical experiences must remain in person under state board rules and because they build psychomotor and interpersonal skills that cannot be learned online. The question is how technology supports them.

Technology 1: Manikin-Based Simulation

High-fidelity manikin simulation lets students practice acute events such as deterioration, sepsis recognition and emergency response with realistic physiological changes, followed by debriefing. A national randomized study of prelicensure students found that substituting simulation for as much as half of the usual clinical time, when simulation was well designed and debriefed by trained faculty, produced outcomes comparable to traditional clinical experiences (Hayden et al., 2014). For our program, manikin simulation is the best way to preserve acute care exposure as we reduce hospital placements. It is also expensive. We will partner with the regional hospital's simulation center for eight hours of simulation per student per term rather than purchase our own equipment, and two faculty will complete simulation and debriefing training. Simulation design will follow published standards for needs assessment, measurable objectives, scenario design, prebriefing and debriefing (Watts et al., 2021).

Technology 2: Virtual and Screen-Based Simulation

Virtual simulation places students with virtual patients on a computer. It is cheaper, can be repeated at home and suits clinical judgment practice, such as recognizing cues and choosing actions. It offers little psychomotor practice. We will use a licensed virtual simulation product for gerontology scenarios, such as a resident with delirium or a fall, assigned as preparation before campus days.

Technology 3: Academic Electronic Health Record

Graduates document in electronic records in every long-term care facility, and several employers told us in Week 2 that new graduates struggle with documentation software. An academic electronic health record lets students practice charting, medication administration records and care plans in a realistic system. We will adopt one for skills lab and simulation.

Technology Not Chosen

Virtual reality headsets were considered. They offer immersive scenarios but at higher cost per student, and the evidence for their added value over screen-based simulation in practical nursing is limited. They may be reconsidered in a later review.

Criteria Used to Compare Options

Each option was judged against the same five criteria, drawn from the curriculum development literature's attention to learners, outcomes and institutional context (Keating & DeBoor, 2018). Fit with learners asked whether working parents in a rural region could use it. Fit with outcomes asked whether it builds the revised curriculum's outcomes, especially clinical judgment and long-term care leadership. Evidence asked what research supports it. Regulation asked whether the state board permits it and in what amount. Cost asked about purchase, maintenance and faculty time. Using the same criteria for every option made the comparison transparent to the curriculum committee and made it easier to explain why virtual reality was set aside.

Faculty Readiness

Technology is only as good as the faculty using it. Several faculty have taught face-to-face for many years and are uneasy about online teaching. The college's teaching center will offer a short course on designing online modules and facilitating active campus days, and faculty who complete it will mentor others. Simulation training for two faculty is budgeted, and the academic electronic health record vendor provides faculty training at no additional cost as part of the license, which removes one barrier to adoption.

Accessibility and Equity

Every technology will be checked for accessibility: captions, screen reader compatibility and plain language. Students without home internet will have access to campus computers during extended hours. Faculty will be trained to use the technologies consistently, so students' experience does not depend on which instructor they have, which students raised as a problem in Week 3.

Monitoring the Choices

The effect of the delivery changes will be monitored through attrition rates, student satisfaction surveys each term, test performance on judgment-based items, clinical evaluation results and, for the first revised cohort, the licensure pass rate. If attrition does not fall or judgment item scores do not rise, the hybrid model and technology use will be reviewed.

Costs Summarized

The recommended mix costs less than equipping the college's own simulation center. The main costs are the simulation partnership fee, the virtual simulation license, the academic electronic health record license, device loans and faculty training. The budget request will present these costs alongside the expected savings from reduced attrition, since each student who withdraws represents lost tuition and a lost graduate for regional employers who are already short of licensed nurses in their buildings.

Conclusion

A hybrid model for theory, in-person skills and clinical experiences supported by manikin simulation through a partnership, virtual simulation for gerontology judgment practice and an academic electronic health record together fit our learners, serve the revised curriculum and stay within our resources. Week 6 will plan how the revised curriculum and its courses will be continuously improved.

References

Hayden, J. K., Smiley, R. A., Alexander, M., Kardong-Edgren, S., & Jeffries, P. R. (2014). The NCSBN National Simulation Study: A longitudinal, randomized, controlled study replacing clinical hours with simulation in prelicensure nursing education. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 5(2 Suppl.), S3-S40. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2155-8256(15)30062-4

Keating, S. B., & DeBoor, S. S. (Eds.). (2018). Curriculum development and evaluation in nursing education (5th ed.). Springer Publishing.

Watts, P. I., McDermott, D. S., Alinier, G., Charnetski, M., Ludlow, J., Horsley, E., Meakim, C., & Nawathe, P. A. (2021). Healthcare simulation standards of best practice: Simulation design. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 58, 14-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecns.2021.08.009