Speaker: Susan Corbridge, PhD, Chief Essentials Program Officer, AACN
Susan Corbridge, PhD: Hi, I'm Dr. Susan Corbridge and I'm the Chief Essentials Program Officer at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. I would like to thank the American Nurses Foundation Reimagining Nursing Initiative for the support for our very important project that we are doing at AACN. Our project is titled Competency-Based Education for Practice-Ready Nurse Graduates. I wanted to share a few of the outcomes to date with you. We have 10 U.S. nursing schools who we selected to receive technical assistance to accelerate their transition to competency-based education and the implementation of the 2021 Essentials. The Essentials were developed in response to a need for nurses who are well equipped to navigate today's complex and rapidly evolving healthcare landscape. This is so important as we move forward to prepare nurses for what lies ahead. By design, these pilot schools have strengthened their collaboration with practice partners, which is critical to educating practice-ready nurses. All pilot schools are engaging with one or more practice partners to integrate experiential learning opportunities into their nursing curriculum. Lessons learned from the pilot schools and their practice partners are being shared now with a AACN's 875 member schools, and we will continue to do so. Outcomes and lessons learned are disseminated and helping to guide efforts to transform how registered nurses are prepared in Baccalaureate and higher degree programs nationwide. Our project includes a practice-ready advisory group, which is made up of deans, faculty members, and practice partners from across the country, and they have developed a new readiness assessment tool to identify organizational factors critical to successful curricular transition. This tool can be used by all nursing schools across institutional types to facilitate the move to competency-based education. Learnings from curricular mapping exercises and backward design, approach to curricular revision that's used by our pilot schools are being incorporated into faculty development experiences Available to more than 55,000 nurse educators nationwide who access AACN's information. AACN has extended substantial assistance to these 10 pilot schools, offering frequent one-on-one consultations, monthly virtual collaboration sessions, coaching workshops on the AACN Essentials, presentations by esteemed national faculty and curricular transition and a plethora of online and printed resources. Leveraging insights gained from this initiative, AACN has curated resources aimed at aiding schools nationwide in adopting the Essentials and transitioning to CBE. Also, the move to competency-based education promotes equity and is crucial for reaching diverse learners, thereby broadening our workforce to provide the best care for the patients we serve. CBE centers on the individual by fostering active learning, motivation, and increased engagement. We are very excited to be working with these 10 pilot schools on this project. We are learning, we are sharing the resources with all of our member schools, and we are so very excited to be working on this project. Thank you again to the American Nurses Foundation Reimagining Nursing Initiative.
