Curriculum Framework

To accomplish this, 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. Developing clinical judgment results from understanding of professional, health care, and patient attributes concepts.

The following are elements of the Cerritos College Nursing CBC Model and Conceptual Framework:

  • The organizing curricular framework is learner centered and guides the student in acquiring the Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills, and Clinical Reasoning that 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 Competencies of:
    • Patient Centered Care,
    • Professionalism,
    • System Based Care,
    • Communication,
    • Teamwork and Collaboration,
    • Safety,
    • Quality Improvement, and
    • Evidence-Based Practice