Welcome to Module IV of Nursing Informatics Training and Education, Course Development. In Module IV, we'll work through the process of course development based on the participants, competencies and content defined in Module III. As we lead course development, we leverage our coordinator, organizer and innovator skills. Adding facilitator skills if your leading programmer course development with colleagues. The objectives for this module are to describe course development around specific competencies to optimize learner outcomes. Discuss using active learning strategies in nursing informatics training and education to gain appreciation for different applications of these strategies in various contexts. And to link assessment and learning to appreciate how tailoring learning assessments prioritizes student learning. First, engage your organizer skills to discover the requirements of your organization. Each nursing informatics training and education setting typically has specific requirements for developing your course document such as a syllabus. The syllabus may include a brief description of the course and related learning objectives for the course and other standard information. Competencies may not be specified in a typical syllabus. However, tracking the competencies addressed in your course will be helpful for evaluating your overall program, especially when seeking accreditation. Follow the requirements of your organization as you develop your course document or syllabus in this module. To begin, it is essential to identify the competencies you will address in your course. As a nursing informatics leader, you may be planning a program that addresses required competencies for accreditation purposes, or you may be planning a training for super users of a particular technology. The degree to which you have leeway to choose your competencies may be limited if you are working with an existing hierarchy, such as a college or university, health system, or software company. It is essential to align with the goals of your organization as you identify the competencies that you will address in your course. Next, describe your course briefly in a few sentences. Perhaps 40 words or less depending on your syllabus guidelines. Your goal with the course description is to provide an overview of the essential course content. Make sure the course description aligns with the competencies you've identified for this course. Then write more detailed course objectives that specify what the participants in your course will know or be able to do upon completing the course. Course objectives are specific and measurable. They begin with a verb such as remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create. These are categories often used in crafting course objectives. Developed originally by Bloom and colleagues in the 1950s and updated in the 1970s. After choosing the verb, specify the content from your course descriptions, or competencies, or skills and what this means for your participants. For example, upon completing this course, learners will be able to create a syllabus for nursing informatics course. I will share an example of a fictitious interprofessional standards course that is designed to illustrate the concepts of knowledge representation and interoperability using active learning strategies in an academic environment. I selected a specific competency from the HIT competencies, wrote a brief course description and then developed three course objectives. The first objective is descriptive and would be most appropriate for entry level nursing education and above. The second objective is an application objective that builds on the first and would be most appropriate for graduate nursing education and above. The third objective aims to synthesize and extend the learning in a leadership context and would be most appropriate for doctoral nursing education. I hope this example helps you to begin your own nursing or healthcare informatics syllabus. Let's pause here to allow you to draft your course descriptions and objectives. When you have a draft of your syllabus, you can continue with part two of this module. Now add an overview of your course content, usually with readings, presentations, assignments, quizzes and tests, grading criteria, and any standard verbiage required by your organization. Details about the course schedule and the content of each lesson, or module, are typically presented in a separate document. Strong organizer skills will help in aligning with the organization's required components in creating a useful syllabus. A fictitious syllabus, for the example standards course, is provided for your critique. How can it be improved?
