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Learning Objective 1: The participant will be able to describe at least one way in which Dialogue Mapping can be used to support critical dialogue in collaborative work.
Learning Objective 2: The participant will be able to give one example as to how Dialogue Mapping was used in developing a new primary health care nursing curriculum.
This abstract is a report on a leadership project that used a computer supported facilitation method during the initial phase of a curriculum redesign process for nursing at Temple University. This curricular work is informed by recent recommendations put forth by the Institute of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation regarding the role of nursing in delivering primary health care. This leadership experience was supported by the Nurse Faculty Mentored Leadership Development Program sponsored by Sigma Theta Tau International.
Methods:
A method of group facilitation called Dialogue Mapping was used to facilitate faculty work in developing organizing constructs for the new curriculum. As the facilitator and project leader, I validated and displayed the questions, issues and evidence being discussed, using a laptop computer, a specialized software program and an LCD display. This method helped the group grapple with issues of shared meaning and purpose by exploring the logical association of the identified questions, issues and evidence. Dialogue maps from each meeting were distributed electronically for review and validation between meetings. The meetings followed a cycle of discovery, refinement and convergence in identifying, defining and ratifying organizing constructs for the new curriculum.
Results:
The project has resulted in substantial commitment on the part of faculty to the curricular redesign process. Faculty expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the quality of the process and outcomes in generating the organizing constructs.
Conclusions:
This demonstration project involved the use Dialogue Mapping in supporting the initial phase of developing a new primary health care curriculum. The results indicate that this facilitation method can effectively support constructivist approaches to collaborative work. Innovative approaches to curricular redesign are needed to support radical rather than incremental changes in nursing programs as they attempt to prepare nurses for new and evolving primary health care roles.
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