This document provides an introduction to nursing curriculum, including definitions of curriculum, conceptions of curriculum, and implications for designing a nursing curriculum. It defines curriculum as a description of what, why, how and when students should learn. It describes three broad streams of educational philosophy that influence curriculum choices: conservative, progressive, and radical views. The document also outlines three approaches to curriculum models: content-driven, process-based, and outcomes-based approaches and their implications for nursing education.

1. Introduction to Nursing Curriculum

2. Objectives
At end of this lesson, the student will able to:
Define curriculum
Describe Conceptions of a curriculum
Describe educational philosophy under curriculum
Implications for designing a nursing curriculum
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3. Curriculum
Curriculum is, in the simplest terms, a description of
what, why, how and when students should learn
curriculum is an area of vital importance to the
professional teacher
Teachers need to be knowledgeable about
curriculum and understand the processes by which
curricula may be developed
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4. Definition…
It is set of subjects or sequence of courses
 Everything that is planned by school personnel and a
series of experiences undergone by learners in a
school
 An aggregate of courses of study in a school system
Curriculum can be defined in a narrow sense as ‘an
organized set of formal educational and or training
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5. Curriculum is a compressive plan for an educational
program offered to fulfill the needs of a dynamic society
It is planned learning experiences that the educational
institution intended to provide for the learners
It Comprises
 means of assessment, attitudes and instructional
strategies taught in the classroom and or in the field
Broader sense definition
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6. Philosophical of nursing education and Curriculum
Choices and decisions about curriculum is based on
understanding of the educational ideologies
Three broad streams of educational philosophy for
curricula choices
 Conservative
 progressive
 radical views
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7. Philosophical…
1. The conservative view
 purpose of education is to transmit worthwhile bodies of
information and truths to generation
 The two schools of thought are Perennialism and
Essentialism
 These schools agree that
 Social change should be slow and they need to conserve
 methodology should be teacher directed and ensures
content-centered curriculum
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8. 1. Perennialism
• Inflexible philosophy of education
• believes that reality comes from fundamental fixed truths
especially related to God.
• "Education implies teaching, teaching implies knowledge
and Knowledge is truth.
• The truth everywhere is the same and hence, education
should be everywhere the same."
Philosophical…
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9. 2. Essentialism
• Rooted in idealism and realism, essentialists
• Suggests that both body and mind are important in
education
• preservation and transmission of what is essential to learn
to generation
• Teacher is best and knows what is important for the learner
• The learner will not ask why but to do as told
• the learner is a passive recipient of information
Philosophical…
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10. 2. The progressive view
• Arise from dissatisfaction with traditional education
practices that totally ignores the learners’ need and
interest in education.
• This often referred to as ‘Learner-centered’ education
The two school of thought are Romantic naturalism
and experimentalism
Philosophical…
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11. 2.1. Romantic naturalism
 society interferes too much in the education of children
 Each learner considered as a potential flower
 ‘’the best that the teacher can do is do nothing’’
2.2. Experimentalism
 Education help learners make connections between their
life experiences and the world of schooling
 Ideas must always be tested by experimentation
 ideology is based on pragmatism
 Pragmatists’ view is that what is real and true is what works
 Knowledge is judged on the basis of its consequences
Philosophical…
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12. 3. The radical view
 Dissatisfied with the progressive educationists
 The view that education should do more in preparing learners
 The learner must actively engage in the learning
 teachers have to be courageous and bold in performing their
roles in reconstructing.
 Teaching-learning process- Cooperative and collaborative
experiences
Philosophical…
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13. Implications for designing a nursing curriculum
 National governments and national regulatory bodies will
always have a dominant say in the direction which nursing
education should take.
 Curriculum change, on the other hand, is the responsibility
of the individual nursing education institution
 Three approaches to curriculum model
 Content-driven/content focused
 process-based
outcomes-based
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14.  A content-driven curriculum is rooted on the essentialist
conservative view of education.
• the most widely used approach to designing a curriculum
• The starting point for such a curriculum is usually a list of
content areas that must be taught
• Lectures, interspersed with discussions, dominate the
teaching/ learning process.
Implications for designing a nursing curriculum…
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15.  The process-based curricula focuses on helping
learners how to learn
 The basic premise is that there is too much knowledge
available in nursing education but a limited time to
prepare students for a lifetime of professional work
 The best that the teachers can do is to help students learn
how to locate information, analyze and interpret it in
solving life problems
Implications for designing …
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16. Implications for designing…
Out come - based
 A radical philosophy of education would seek to
transform not only the relationship between teachers
and students, but also the relationship between
nurses and clients, and ultimately the health care
system
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17. Major Conceptions of Curriculum
1. The academic rationalist conception
 the application of cognitive skills in resolving
problems
2. The humanistic conception
 It is all rounded personality and holistic approach
with integration of cognitive, affective and
psychomotor domains
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18. Major Conceptions of Curriculum…
3. Social re-constructionist conception
 a curriculum should be derived from social needs
and free from emancipation, right to know reality
4. Technological conception
 Organization of knowledge and use of resources
to respond to human needs
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