CLN collaborative project pays off for LPN to RN students

Connecticut Nursing News, Sep-Nov 2000 by Murdock, Jane E

Since 1988, Connecticut League for Nursing (CLN) has sponsored the development, implementation, and evaluation of a statewide articulation plan to facilitate the smooth advancement of nurses prepared in one level of nursing, education to the next level without unnecessary redundancy or loss of credit in the transfer process. The plan was developed in collaboration with the deans and directors of the state's schools of nursing and the state department of higher education. Implementation of the articulation plan had proceeded smoothly at the RN to BS level since its initiation in 1992, but problems related to access, finances, and student support services created barriers to implementation of the required 3-credit LPN to RN transition course that is required for LPNs to move directly into the second year of a nursing program.

In order to address these problems and to increase the number of LPNs participating in the articulation plan, CLN has again collaborated with the directors of the state's LPN, diploma and associate degree nursing programs to redesign the transition course as an asynchronous, web-based offering. In addition, the collaborative network has been expanded to include the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium and Charter Oak State College. Starting in the spring semester 2000, the course offered by the Consortium under the sponsorship of Charter Oak. The Consortium provides the delivery network. Charter Oak credits the course and funds its implementation from student tuition. This four-way collaboration provides a unique opportunity to deliver the LPN to RN transition course. in a way that assures maximum flexibility, financial viability for the course, and support for the students.

A team of four people, consisting of two representatives of CLN, and two educators (an associate degree program faculty member and a distance learning educational consultant), were directly involved in developing the web-based course. Development of the course was challenging for at least three reasons. First, because it could not be assumed that the students would have the requisite computer skills to participate in the course, assessment of their skill level in the use of the internet, e-mail, sending attachments and participating on a list serve and discussion board was a key element in planning for course implementation.

Second, changes in the curricula of all of the participating schools necessitated review and revision of the content of the original transition course. Under the sponsorship of the CLN articulation oversight committee, a review of all the programs was conducted, and a representative committee of faculty from all the schools developed new objectives that now successfully bridge the gap between the revised curricula of the LPN and RN programs. The course syllabus was revised by the project faculty based on the new objectives and presented to the articulation oversight committee for their review and comment. Third, because successful achievement of some of the objectives of the transition course has typically required student/patient and student/faculty interaction, for example, interviewing skills and therapeutic communication, it was a challenge to design web-- based experiences to address these objectives.

To address this challenge, the project faculty developed-content-focused-PowerPoint presentations, reading assignments and a set of learning activities to support achievement of the unit objectives for each of the six units of course content. For example, in the nursing process unit, the learning activities include a patient interview. Similarly, in the communications unit, students submit a process recording of a therapeutic patient interaction, and in the teaching unit, design and conduct a teaching intervention. The students are asked to submit their summaries of these activities via email for the faculty member's critique and comment. In other units such as legal and ethical issues and theoretical foundations, learning activities include participation in email and web-- based discussion forums after completing associated reading assignments or viewing assigned videos or other software.

As the development process' evolved, it became increasingly clear that the collaborative relationships with Charter Oak and the Consortium had additional advantages. For example, at first the faculty struggled with how they would get textbooks and provide access to videos, assure the security of exams, or deal with students who could not complete the course in the prescribed amount of time. However, they soon learned that policies and procedures for all of these issues were already in place and published by Charter Oak in a manual available to all faculty and students.

The evaluation blueprint for the project is designed to assess the outcomes of this new collaborative approach to implementing the transition course. Student surveys will be conducted each year to assess their satisfaction with the course. Their performance in the subsequent courses of the nursing curriculum as well as their success on the licensing exam will be tracked by the CLN articulation oversight committee and reported to the deans and directors of the participating schools. The associate degree program faculty member who participated in developing the course will serve as the course instructor each year and will continually revise the course based on this feedback from the students and the schools.