Innovative Curriculum Enhancement Using Student Self-Reflection and Nurse Practitioner Student Tracking Information Management

In today’s healthcare environment, clinical practice of nurse practitioners (NP) is ever evolving and adapting.  This coupled with the new MSN Essentials, has provoked creative strategies that blend tradition with technology, to effectively enhance NP curriculum aligning program performance and strategic goals as well as promote student self-reflection while integrating technological innovations.

Course evaluation data is crucial to continuous quality improvement in educational programs.  Higher education is changing significantly in response to the demands of today’s students. As modern students’ learning styles and ways of accessing information are grounded in the latest technologies, it is necessary for programs and faculty to continue to adapt to this new environment while still managing learning and evaluation outcomes. 

Nurse practitioner course evaluation data has traditionally been collected using conventional survey methodology and reflects student perceptions and satisfaction regarding experiences with courses, clinical, services, and resources to achieve specific objectives. This data collected is not sensitive to specific competencies but more generalized to meet course objectives.  Students do not have the ability to use the data to plan their future course/program goals and often struggle to perfect reflective techniques. Faculty receive generalized course evaluation data and written comments months after course completion to refine curriculum for the following year but it doesn’t contribute to the current student’s goals during the remainder of their program.

This poster describes one program’s initiative to use compiled data from a nurse practitioner student clinical tracking system (NPST) along with student’s self-reflection of course and program competencies to individualize, plan and coordinate remaining program experiences and goals. The quantitative and qualitative data from these analysis and reflections of competence will impact current curricular enhancement and allow students immediate feedback in order to fill gaps using simulation and other innovative strategies.