Paper
Monday, November 5, 2007
418
A Recipe for Leading Change: Context, Content, and Conduct
Vicki Schug, PhD, RN, Susan Forneris, PhD, RN, CRRN, CCM, and Kathleen Kalb, PhD, RN. Department of Nursing, College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, MN, USA
This paper presents the context of leading change through a curricular revision process based on chaos theory and transformational leadership theory. Using a “3 C ” (context, content, and conduct) approach, an 8-member faculty task force provides recommendations for a theory-based framework to guide curriculum revision in a baccalaureate degree program. To create the context for thinking, a series of questions are used beginning with the end in mind. Faculty organize their thinking around where we have been and where we are going. Moving from a single to a multi-theory framework provides context to differentiate frameworks that guide curriculum development from those that guide nursing practice. Seminal readings on evidence-based practice and thinking nursing provide additional context for faculty reflection. As task force members move to the edge of chaos, a thinking nursing framework emerges as an educational approach to develop an inclusive understanding of theory, evidence, and nursing knowledge. Using Carper’s Fundamental Patterns of Knowing (1978), the task force explores how patterns of knowledge can be operationalized into curricular content to make the connections between what students learn in the classroom and how they achieve mindfulness in nursing practice. The use of chocolate chip cookies provides a vehicle to transform a shared vision for thinking nursing, engaging the baccalaureate faculty and students in the conduct of this framework.
References:
Carper, B. (1978). Fundamental patterns of knowing in nursing. Advances in Nursing Science, 1(1), 13-23.