Curriculum Framework

The Concept Based Curriculum (CBC) has been selected as the primary conceptual framework. The CBC model guides nursing students to attain insightful understanding of major concepts of nursing. The curriculum emphasizes deep understanding about the discipline’s most central concepts which leads to the student’s ability to develop habits of thought and pattern recognition. The curriculum is conceptually based and is established on principles of adult and collaborative learning. This conceptual framework is learner- centered where the student develops a deeper understanding of prevalent health care conditions and situations across the lifespan. The curriculum model provides a learning environment that facilitates higher order thinking skills and clinical reasoning in undergraduate nursing students. Faculty design learning activities that promote student engagement, self-assessment and self-directed learning.  The program also adopts the Clinical Judgement Model by Tanner to guide critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and increased confidence with decision making.   Developing clinical judgment results from understanding the profession, scope of practice, standards of care, the health care delivery system, and the patient attributes.    To prepare our graduates for practice today and in tomorrow, the program embraces the Nurse of the Future Core Competencies, originally set forth by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education Nursing Initiative with the National League of Nursing in 2010. 

 

The following are elements of the Cerritos College Nursing CBC Model and Conceptual Framework that guide the curriculum in the classroom and in the clinical training:

  • The organizing curricular framework is learner centered and guides the student in acquiring the Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills, and Clinical Reasoningthat are essential in preparing the student in today’s nursing practice.
  • Clinical reasoning is facilitated with the use of the Nursing Process and Clinical Judgment Model(Tanner, 2006) that includes the Noticing, Interpreting, Responding, and Reflecting phase and is implemented using the Caputi’s Clinical Judgment Model/Framework (2019). This is utilized alongside Nursing Process.
  • Nursing principles focus on the domains of the patient, the nurse, and health care.  It acknowledges key global nursing competencies reflected by Nurse of the Future Core Nursing Competenciesof:
    • Patient Centered Care,
    • Professionalism,
    • System Based Care,
    • Communication,
    • Teamwork and Collaboration,
    • Safety,
    • Quality Improvement, and
    • Evidence-Based Practice