The Design and Implementation of the Agile Team for Curriculum Development

Sunday, 22 July 2018: 2:45 PM

Lydia L. Forsythe, PhD, MSN, MA
Consulting Group; School of Nursing, Londes Strategic Healthcare Consulting; Capella University, Oklahoma City, OK, USA
Constance Hall, EdD, MSN, BA, RN
Department of Nursing, Capella University, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Jocelyn D'Antonio, PhD, MS, RN
School of Nursing and Health Sciences, Capella University, Minneapolis, MN, USA
John Schmidt, DNP, MSN, RN, CEN, EMT-P
Capella University, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Stephen Sorenson, MS
Nursing Department Instructional Design, Capella University, Minnieapolis, MN, USA
Brian Hagen, MS
Instructional Design, Nursing Department, Capella University, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Purpose: Nursing students deserve the best when it comes to curriculum delivery. To be the best curriculum should be relevant and applicable in practice. Graduate nursing curriculums need to be developed using professional standards, regulatory guidelines and mindful intent. Due to costs constraints and strategic viability for nursing programs using online learning system environments, curriculums have to remain vital for a minimum of a 3-5 year period. Thus, the actual content should be applicable and relevant for a 5 year period, encompassing research and practice driven concepts that allow for flexibility as specific practice ideas and applications evolve.

Methods: To create this type of curriculum there should be an evolutionary source of idea generation by a team of experts. Other practical and important aspects to consider for curriculum development with a team are the concepts of time and efficiency, and optimization of knowledge with dedicated collaborative experts.

Results: So, developing a team with multiple specialists is essential and their time spent is valuable. Subject matter experts (SME) that truly focus on content, instructional designers who are well versed with course structure and a collaborative leadership with a vision, provides a pathway for innovative curriculum development as a committed team of experts.

Conclusion: In a large and complex online learning environment, a new process for cutting edge curriculum development was created and implemented to maximize experts’ intellectual capacity. Thus, the Trifecta concept with an Agile team was born; a diverse team of highly qualified and driven individuals were chosen to be part of new innovative curriculum revisions. The Agile team process is collaborative, iterative and the culmination of idea generation for curriculum development. As a collaborative team of knowledge sharing subject matter experts, instructional designers, media consultants, and administrative leaders we embarked on the design, development and application of the agile inspired process in academia.

Our goal was to develop the most relevant information in an MSN curriculum by providing, scholarly and competency based courses that support learner success. The outcome was the provision of a relevant, dynamic and robust curriculum. This process and team have provided a model to use throughout this large online University to provide the best curriculums for our students.

The process of developing this particular concept is truly a journey of team growth and bonding. As highly driven individuals we build upon each other’s strengths moving through a series of important conversations, course iterations and ultimately a product that satisfies the needs of our learners. Together the Agile team engages in idea development for a path to improved course delivery.

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