Saga – NLN Curriculum Revolution in Review

This episode of the NLN Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga track reviews the NLN Curriculum Revolution. It highlights the contributions of nurse educators like Drs. Em Bevis, Nancy Diekelmann, and Christine Tanner, who challenged traditional customs and advocated for transformative changes in nursing education. The episode discusses the initial resistance and eventual acceptance of these revolutionary ideas, emphasizing the need for ongoing reform in teaching strategies and curriculum design. It also underscores the importance of building nurse educator expertise to enhance higher-level reasoning skills and address complex healthcare environments. The episode concludes by honoring the legacy of these curriculum leaders and their impact on the future of nursing education.

Dedicated to excellence in nursing, the National League for Nursing is the leading organization for nurse faculty and leaders in nursing education. Find past episodes of the NLN Nursing EDge podcast online. Get instant updates by following the NLN on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and YouTube. For more information, visit NLN.org.

Transcript

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Welcome to Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga as we use stories to connect the past to the present  and then our future as we reimagine our teaching and learning. As we celebrate the NLN Year of the  Nurse Educator, we pay tribute to extraordinary nurses who've made significant contributions to  nursing education. We dive into the stories of nurse educators who recognize to need,  challenged traditional customs, and influenced transformative change.  

Leaders of the Curriculum Revolution: 1:09

doctors Em Bevis, Nancy Diekelmann, Christine Tanner,  Peggy Chinn, David Allen, Patricia Benner, Deborah Spunt, and Verle Waters whose work we  highlighted throughout this year, invited nurse educators more than three decades ago to begin a  dialogue that was risky and unconventional. They asked nurse educators to talk about change and  to legitimize the understanding that reform was needed in nursing education. Their words  and writings stimulated cutting-edge thinking about how teachers teach and how students learn.  They asked the nursing education community to be open to new ideas and to embrace the teaching of  inquiry, reflection, criticism, clinical judgment, and caring and to address the oppressive power  dynamic between teacher and student. They were radical thinkers and thoughtful advocates of  reform with a powerful message. They saw the world of nursing and nursing education with a new lens.  For those of us who share a commitment to educational reform and value highly the role  we play in bringing integrity and quality to nursing education, we are indebted to our  curriculum revolutionary colleagues for their resilience, for their thoughtful advocacy of  nursing's moral commitment to society's need for a competent and efficient nursing workforce, and  for their steadfastness to question traditional educational practices that challenge excellence  in open dialogue. We recognize that dramatic change and transformation at the instructional  and curricular levels of nursing education did not occur during and immediately following the  NLN Curriculum Revolution, despite a national effort by the NLN to launch, support, publish,  and disseminate ideas, perspectives, and innovative strategies fostered by leaders of the revolution.  Certainly there were pockets of innovation, but a sustained and comprehensive redesign  of nursing education did not happen. As is true in all revolutions, the ideas advocated by the  curriculum revolutionaries were celebrated by some, marginalized by many, and resisted by others.  And yet, over time, many of the revolutionary ideas and thoughtful insights embraced by Curriculum  Revolution leaders have endured and provide us with the foundation to reconsider new ways  to conceptualize curriculum and relationships with students in the context of the educational  environment. The release of the National Academy of Medicine Future of Nursing 2020-2030 report and  its chapter focused on nursing education clearly suggests that the decade ahead will challenge  the discipline of nursing and nursing education in new and complex ways. Nursing education will  require unique changes in what is taught, how it is taught, who the students are, and who teaches them.  Building nurse educator expertise in the use of teaching strategies that enhance higher level  reasoning skills is paramount for both the next generation of learners and more importantly, in  building a nursing workforce that can critically think to deliver safe and effective care in our  complex healthcare environments. Change must be targeted in these areas to enhance the acquisition  of new competencies, work effectively outside of acute care settings, and build cultures of health  and health equity. The National League for Nursing continues to challenge and support nurse educators  in education excellence evidenced in publications recently over the last several years that include:  the Hallmarks of Excellence in Nursing Education, NLN Core Competencies for Nurse Educators: A Decade  of Influence, and NLN Vision Statements focused on the use of advancing teaching strategies  and faculty expertise to teach higher level reasoning skills throughout a program of learning.  These publications advocate for faculty development and importantly engaging our  practice partners as we extend and operationalize new brain-based teaching and learning strategies  for our next generation of professionals. As we conclude a year highlighting the profound  contributions of the NLN Curriculum Revolution, to accomplish these innovations, we will continue  to look to the past and celebrate its lessons. We stand on the shoulders of those curriculum leaders  who chose to speak about reform and radical possibility. The richness of their powerful  ideas lay the foundation for future directions through the NLN's Saga series and in our work  to archive NLN's most significant publications from the Curriculum Revolution. We honor these  revolutionaries, profound thinkers leaders, and reformers who spearheaded the revolution with  resolve and evidence-based, far-reaching, new, and transformative approaches to curriculum design.  In the words of Dr. Christine Tanner, "let the revolution continue." And so the Saga continues and may our Saga continue as we bring  to a close this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga. Thank you for joining us