Creating a Context Relevant Curriculum

Zygmont, Dolores

Sunday, 17 November 2013: 2:45 PM

Dolores Zygmont, RN, PhD
College of Health Professions and Social Work, Department of Nursing, Temple University, College of Health Professions, Philadelphia, PA

Learning Objective 1: Describe the concept of context relevant DNP curriculum

Learning Objective 2: Discuss DNP content selection process to maintain contextual relevance

Located in an urban environment, Temple University serves a gegraphic area that is dominated by poverty, poor education, high unemployment, and poor health. The clinical experiences of the nurse practitioner students was predominantly in this poorly served geopgraphic area. The nurse practitioner curriculum addressed content that was relevant to a life span development approach but did not specifically address the population being served. Receipt of a HRSA grant entitled "Preparing Adult and Family Nurse Practitioners in Primary Care for Clients Living in Urban Poverty". The grant enabled the faculty to deconstruct the existing curriculum and reconstruct a curricululm that focused on the context in which the clients served. The curriculum revision was framed by the Essentials of Doctoral Education and incorported Healthy People 2012, the United States Preventive Services Task Force Recommendations. Living in urban poverty was addressed primarlly in the core courses while the clinical specialty courses focused on clinical content but incorporated core content into case assignments. During the revision process, the faculty operated from several beliefs: (1) content should be incorporated that is relevant to the popoulation served; (2) primary care providers must truly understand the life circumstances of their clients to deliver hosiltic care; (3) core and specialty clinical courses should be incorported into assignments to truly develop mastery at context relevant care. Several workshops were provided to increase faculty knowledge and understanding of life in urban poverty and discussions were monitored by several faculty who have extensive experiences in urban poverty. This presentation will describe the process of deconstruction and reconstruction of the curriculum.

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