Bruin Brief 2022-09-16 The Course Syllabus

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Preparation for a new quarter of teaching usually begins with the design of a course syllabus.  Today the Bruin Brief will review what constitutes a syllabus and the grading scheme that must be included in each School of Nursing syllabus. Through a well-crafted syllabus, students come to understand the scope and nature of learning and expectations for competence. Perhaps most importantly, students absorb their teacher’s enthusiasm for the material through the medium of the syllabus.

What is a syllabus?

A syllabus is “a concise statement or table of…the subjects of a series of lectures, etc.; a compendium, abstract, summary, epitome” (Oxford English Dictionary).

Commonly considered by faculty as a contract between students and their professor, a syllabus defines what will be taught and how learning will be assessed. A syllabus is also a demonstration of academic freedom and responsibilities by faculty, infused with the unique expertise and personality of the professor while also conforming to disciplinary standards. The University of California reviews and approves the course descriptions of courses, but does not require review of all syllabi:

A syllabus provides students with notification about course content.  Its notice function goes much further than a course description, however, because a syllabus typically presents a more elaborate account of the course material, as well as daily assignments, workload expectation, grading percentages, paper submission guidelines, and reading lists.  Moreover, a syllabus differs from a course description in that it represents a personal communication from a particular faculty member to the students, not a formal statement from the faculty as a whole and the University.  As such, a syllabus serves to alert students to the professor’s approach to the material, to attract enrollments by conveying the professor’s enthusiasm for the subject, and to ensure that students undertake the class with appropriate expectations about the nature and timing of course work. (University of California Course Description Task Force, 2003)

In summary, a syllabus communicates to students an overview of the course and pertinent details about the nature, timing, and grading of students’ coursework.

What is the approved School of Nursing grading scheme to include in a syllabus?

The student handbook outlines general academic policies for the School of Nursing, including standard grading scales. 

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The Student Handbooks are available online at the UCLA School of Nursing website for additional information about grading, grading grievances, and academic consequences of non-passing grades.

How-to steps for selecting the SON-specific, pre-built grading schemes in your BruinLearn course

Explaining assignments, rubrics, and grading policies in the syllabus

Course assignments are designed for students to demonstrate achievement of one or more course competencies and are clearly described in course syllabi. Many faculty members provide evaluation rubrics in the syllabus with details on performance expectations.

For BS and MECN students, satisfactory achievement is defined as a minimum of a “C” in every theory course. For theory-clinical courses, students must achieve a “C” grade (≥ 74%) in both clinical and theory portions of the course. BS students must maintain a minimum term and cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 (on a 4.0 scale). MECN students must maintain a minimum term and cumulative GPA of 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale). For APRN students, satisfactory achievement is defined as a minimum of a “C” (≥ 74%) grade in theory courses and a “B” grade (≥ 84%) in clinical courses. APRN students must also maintain a minimum term and cumulative GPA of 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale). All grading, progression, and academic policies are reviewed with BS, MECN, and APRN students when faculty review the course syllabus at the beginning of each course.

Syllabus information about the Kaplan Exams

Every quarter, prelicensure students’ level of knowledge for clinical practice is evaluated via Kaplan NCLEX preparation resources. Students are required to complete integrated tests as well as focused review tests with remediation. The integrated exams are scored two ways: one with a percent correct and the other with a national percentile rank. These integrated exams often serve as a predictor test for passing the NCLEX exam.

Prelicensure students take both integrated and focused review tests every quarter until graduation which can serve as a process for self-evaluation, clinical knowledge remediation, and NCLEX preparation.

Syllabus information about clinical evaluation

In the prelicensure programs, as part of orientation to each theory-clinical course, faculty introduce students to a Clinical Evaluation Tool (CET), which clearly describes expected clinical behaviors for each theory-clinical course. Throughout the quarter, preceptors and clinical instructors provide formative feedback on these expected behaviors to students. However, only the Clinical Instructor provides the summative evaluation and score at the conclusion of the clinical learning experience. Lead Faculty calculate final grades for theory-clinical courses by combining students’ theory and clinical scores; students must achieve at least 74% in theory scores and 74% in clinical scores to pass the course and progress to the next quarter.

In the MSN-APRN program, students receive formative clinical evaluations from their one-on-one clinical preceptors and from APRN faculty. The APRN faculty member determines students’ final course grade, with input provided by the student’s self-evaluation and the preceptor’s evaluation. In the APRN clinical courses, the number of clinical hours increases with each course, as does the progress expectations for student performance in each course, with corresponding increase in the clinical evaluation component of the final course grade.

The percentage of the final course grade assigned to clinical evaluation ranges from 40-45% to 65%, with increasing percentages applied as students progress from the beginning to intermediate and advanced level skills and competences. For each clinical course, the expectations for practice hours, competency level, and percentage weight for grading are presented. For clinical preceptors, expectations of students in each APRN specialty are clearly delineated in the Preceptor Handbook.

The Essentials are founded on a competency-based approach to nursing education.
How does grading in a concept-based versus a competency-based curriculum differ?

Concepts in nursing include communication, , leadership, professionalism, safety, inflammation, elimination, nutrition and perfusion, among many others (Giddens, 2013). A conceptual understanding of nursing, health, person, and environment prepares students to make sound clinical judgments. This differs from a competency-based curriculum, where we expect students to act on their clinical judgment and demonstrate attainment of specific competencies.  When we teach concepts, we often test facts. When we teach to competencies, we evaluate performance. Now that we are transitioning to a competency-based approach, we plan to teach students  concepts and knowledge in early courses so that they have a firm basis for competent performance. In later courses, knowledge is reinforced through simulation and supervised clinical experience. By the end of the course of study, students are expected to demonstrate in real-world practice settings their attainment of competencies.

Reference:
Giddens, J. (2013). Concepts for nursing practice.  St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.

Congratulations to Zarenna Khan, the first faculty member to upload all of the required documents into eValue! 

Congratulations to Kristen Choi, Paul Macey, Colleen Bogdanich, and the 5 APRN faculty who worked on the N439A-E series of courses. These were the first five faculty to document the course sub-competencies and upload their course maps into the AACN Essentials folder. 

If you haven’t yet completed your course map to document the fit with the Essentials sub-competencies, please reach out to your Program Director and Carol Pavlish to ask for help. We are now compiling the submissions to arrive at an overall gap analysis of the entire BS program by early October.

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Lauren Clark
Professor and Shapiro Family Endowed Chair in Developmental Disability Studies

Associate Dean, Academic Programs
Office: (310) 267-5923

Mobile: (801) 503-4755
nursing.ucla.edu