NURS 619 Week 6 Curriculum Plan Part IV: Course Syllabus Example

Curriculum Plan Part IV: Syllabus for NUR 330 Concepts of Adult Health I at the Cedar Hill School of Nursing

Course Information and Description

NUR 330 Concepts of Adult Health I is a six-credit course in the fourth semester, combining three credits of classroom learning with three credits of clinical practice in acute care. Prerequisites are Foundations of Nursing Practice, Health Assessment, and Pathophysiology and Pharmacology I. The course introduces students to nursing care of adults with common alterations in perfusion, gas exchange, fluid and electrolyte balance, and comfort, using exemplars to teach transferable patterns of assessment and intervention. Clinical judgment, safety and dignity are developed throughout. In the curriculum design, NUR 330 is the first course in which the health and illness concepts are applied to acutely ill adults, preparing students for Adult Health II in the next semester.

Course Outcomes

Weekly Schedule of Concepts and Exemplars

Clinical and Simulation Requirements

Students complete 135 clinical hours on adult medical-surgical units at two partner hospitals, with no more than 30 hours replaced by simulation. Each week, students care for one patient, progressing to two by week eight, and submit a concept-based care plan that explains the reasoning behind their priorities. Simulations on heart failure decompensation and respiratory deterioration occur in weeks five and eight. Clinical preceptors and adjunct faculty receive a two-hour orientation to the course's clinical judgment rubric before the term begins.

The Competency Checkpoint

Week fifteen includes the first checkpoint for Program Outcome 1: each student manages a simulated patient whose condition changes, and faculty rate performance on the clinical judgment rubric. Students who do not meet the introductory standard complete remediation and a second attempt before progressing. The design borrows from the checkpoints Sak et al. (2026) piloted in a population health practicum, where each checkpoint was tied to an Essentials competency and scored with validated tools, giving faculty a shared standard. Because consistent rating depends on the people doing it, the preceptor orientation responds to the finding by Tschannen et al. (2026) that preceptor training for competency-based education often improved confidence and teaching but frequently lacked clear definitions of competency and validated tools. A checkpoint is only as fair as the raters who apply it, so preparing those raters is part of the syllabus, not an extra.

Evaluation and Grading

Clinical practice is graded pass or fail using the clinical judgment rubric; students must pass clinical and the competency checkpoint and earn at least 77% of the weighted points to pass the course.

Course Policies

Attendance at all clinical and simulation experiences is required, with make-up arranged for documented emergencies. Academic integrity applies to all work. Generative AI tools may be used to review course content and generate practice questions but may not be used to write care plans, reflections or any graded work, and any permitted use must be acknowledged. McCusker et al. (2026) described a decision guide that rates assessments by how vulnerable they are to inappropriate AI use, based on the setting and method of the assessment, and the course's assessments were reviewed with that approach: care plans are partly completed during clinical and discussed with the instructor, which makes substitution difficult.

Faith Integration

Faith is integrated through the concept of dignity, the spiritual care assignment and weekly reflection on how students cared for patients as whole persons. Colossians 3:12 calls believers to "put on ... compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience" (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016), and the course asks students to practice those virtues with acutely ill adults and their families.

Teaching Strategies

The course uses strategies that match its concept-based design and its learners. Each concept unit opens with a short preparation module that students complete before class, so class time can be spent on case work. Classes follow a consistent rhythm: a brief review of the concept, an exemplar case worked in small groups, and a debrief in which groups explain their reasoning. Every second week, students complete an unfolding case that combines the current concept with earlier ones, so that perfusion, gas exchange and fluid balance are seen interacting in the same patient, as they do in practice. Clinical post-conferences focus on one patient situation chosen by the instructor and examined through noticing, interpreting, responding and reflecting. Faculty hold optional review sessions before each examination built around practice items that require application. These strategies reflect the philosophy stated in Part I, that learners build understanding through guided experience, and they give the competency checkpoint something to measure: reasoning that students have practiced all term.

Completing the Plan

With this syllabus, the Cedar Hill curriculum plan is complete: the mission and philosophy in Part I lead to the outcomes in Part II, which shape the design in Part III and the course taught here. Billings and Halstead (2016) describe the syllabus as the point where curriculum becomes teaching, and NUR 330 is where Cedar Hill's commitments first meet acutely ill patients.

References

Billings, D. M., & Halstead, J. A. (2016). Teaching in nursing: A guide for faculty (5th ed.). Elsevier.

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

McCusker, K. A., Kennedy, B. B., & Parish, A. (2026). Beyond AI detection: A decision-making guide for strategic assessment design in nursing education. Nurse Educator. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNE.0000000000002281

Sak, H., Davis, R., Harty, A., Luksan, M., Jessen, J., & Genua, J. A. (2026). Advancing competency-based education in nursing: Faculty-driven innovation for transforming population health. Journal of Professional Nursing, 66, 28-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2026.05.018

Tschannen, D., Cooper, M., & Ashford, K. (2026). An integrative review exploring support for clinical preceptors in competency-based education in health professional programs. Journal of Professional Nursing, 66, 247-258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2026.08.003