From random access opportunity to a clinical education curriculum

The purpose of the clinical education curriculum is to improve student achievement of course competencies through the creation of structured learning experiences that are scaffolded to the curriculum and the level of the student; to ease the strain of clinical education on the clinical agencies; and to ease the transition of the student role to that of the professional nurse. As educators, we realize that we can no longer rely on random access opportunity for the development of practice skills. We must structure our clinical education, like we structure our course content, to be appropriate to the learning outcomes and the developmental level of the student. Several of the OCNE learning models are currently being developed and evaluated as OCNE pilot projects. As the curriculum is implemented, OCNE will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of the learning models and the combined effect of the integrated curriculum of achievement of the goals of the program.