University-college collaboration: rethinking curriculum development in nursing education

The behavioral approach to curriculum development is inadequate to educate nurses to practice in the future health care system. As a result of a government initiative, a Canadian university and four community colleges had an opportunity to collaborate on development of a nursing program and thereby consider alternative approaches to curriculum development. This paper describes the process used to develop this curriculum and provides an overview of the curriculum development model that emerged. A community development process characterized by a commitment to be futuristic and visionary about nursing while making curriculum decisions was established. The curriculum model that emerged used a phenomenological exploration of our common vision for nursing in the future. The resulting curriculum is based on a human science paradigm that encourages nurses to work from a health promotion perspective with an ethic of caring.