In response to the challenges imposed by the pandemic, the shortage of qualified nurse educators, and the return of students to face-to-face classes, Far Eastern University, through the initiative of Dean Moira Gaviola-Uy, redesigned the approach to curriculum implementation while ensuring that it complies with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) mandate of a standardized, outcomes-based curriculum plan for Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Upon assessing the needs of the stakeholders, a responsive design labelled as the “Compartmentalized Curriculum Approach” was developed and implemented while making sure that the stipulations of CMO 15 Series of 2017 are met by the FEU Nursing Program.
The Compartmentalized Curriculum Approach operates on the idea of appointing a focused timeline of delivery for the professional nursing course components, instead of delivering the components simultaneously. This means that all theoretical preparation and practice– the laboratory-focused skills and clinical rotations– will be delivered sequentially, with the lecture component being scheduled on the first 6 weeks of the semester followed by skills laboratory and clinical rotations for the remaining 12 weeks.
Midway through the semester, upon implementing the compartmentalized timeline of professional nursing courses’ components delivery, a preliminary survey was conducted by the FEU Nursing Society to evaluate the program implementation of the mentioned approach. One-thousand, six hundred forty-three (1,643) respondents from levels 1 to 4 participated in the survey upon securing consent and agreement to the RA 10173, Data Privacy Act of 2012.
Well-developed modules, more time for study, more organized and better preparedness before clinical duty were highlighted to be the strengths of the program while pacing and allocation of time for concepts, overlapping of schedule and inconsistency in the announcement were areas for improvement mentioned.
At such a time when the program is midway to its initial semestral completion, the strengths appeared promising while the areas for improvement necessitate appropriate measures. To give timely and due attention to areas of improvement, a series of dialogue were conducted with the students including townhall meetings with the Dean of Nursing and the Nursing Academic Team.
| via Geraldine Canete, MAN, RN, FEU IHSN
