Our Philosophy
The Program
The faculty believes that Associate Degree Nursing education should be based on accepted standards of community college education as part of the pursuit of higher education. Associate Degree Nursing education provides liberal as well as professional components, thus providing the student with a broad base of knowledge. The faculty believes this knowledge facilitates an understanding of the person, environment and health, and stimulates individual growth and involvement in the profession and the community.
The College of DuPage Associate Degree Nursing program faculty believes it is necessary to have a curriculum developed by nursing experts. Therefore, the C.O.D. Associate Degree Nursing program curriculum is driven by the faculty, and is based on national and state standards. These standards include the American Nurses Association’s Standards of Practice, the American Nurses Association’s Code of Ethics for Nurses, and the Standards of Professional Conduct for Registered Professional Nurses from the State of Illinois’ Rules for the Administration of the Nursing and Advanced Practice Nursing Act. Using these standards, the faculty is responsible for identifying the knowledge and competencies required of students in each nursing course, for establishing minimum standards for demonstrating these skills, and for evaluating student performance to determine the degree to which these standards have been met.
The Individual
The faculty believes a person is a unique, holistic being with physical, emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual and environmental needs. These needs, which are common to all human beings regardless of culture, race or gender, exist throughout a person’s life span and are influenced by levels of health and interaction with the environment. Nursing care is provided with consideration of the person, health and environment within a health care delivery system.
Diversity of individuals is a core component for professional nursing. Students learn to understand, respect and accept differences and similarities among the varied patients in their care. Likewise, faculty provides the same understanding, respect and acceptance of the differences and similarities between the students who enroll in the C.O.D. Associate Degree Nursing program.
The faculty believes that a person’s internal and external environment is the sum of all the conditions and elements that make up their surroundings, and thus influences their development. Environmental factors directly influence the level of wellness, as well as an individual’s ability to reach his or her full potential as a thinking, creative and productive person.
Nursing Process
The faculty believes in a nursing framework for the planning of nursing care and uses Gordon’s functional health patterns as a framework to structure a database which facilitates the identification of nursing diagnoses with a holistic, nursing perspective. Within this framework, health patterns are assessed and health problems identified. Collaborative problems are also addressed in terms of the patient’s plan of care. The assessment data collected and organized within Gordon’s functional health patterns are used to formulate nursing diagnoses, as developed by the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) for describing actual or potential health problems. Assessment and diagnosis are the first two steps of the nursing process that are used to plan patient care.
The nursing process is an expression of critical thinking that enables the formation of clinical judgments based upon scientific rationale. The five steps of this process include assessing, diagnosing, planning, implementing and evaluating therapeutic nursing interventions to provide comprehensive nursing care for patients at all points on the health continuum, in all stages of the life span, and in any of the health care delivery systems.
Teaching-Learning
The faculty views the teaching-learning process as a dynamic, logical interchange between the learner and the educational environment. Learning involves the acquisition of knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, critical thinking and clinical reasoning, and is evidenced by meaningful use of these acquired factors in the care of patients. The faculty believes that individuals learn in a variety of ways and that a diversity of resources should be available to meet individual student learning needs.
We believe in instructor-guided and student self-directed learning; thus, we consider the primary roles of the instructor to be those of teacher, facilitator, evaluator and adviser, as well as a person the students can approach for additional resources. The faculty is responsible for assisting individual students to become knowledgeable, demonstrate competencies and meet the program outcomes needed for entry into a beginning-level nursing practice.
Learning is enhanced when the student’s knowledge level is identified to plan appropriate lessons, when educational experiences are organized in a logical sequence that promotes continuity, and when the individual’s unique needs and strengths are considered.
The Learning Environment
The faculty values a learning environment that:
- Is supportive of learning
- Fosters healthy interdependence
- Is respectful of and concerned about students
- Empowers students in their present and lifelong learning experiences
The faculty values a caring environment for students that promotes flexible, accessible and diverse educational experiences. Adult learning principles are used in all interactions with students in order to encourage self-directed, purposeful learning that is respectful of the knowledge and experience students bring to the educational environment. This adult learning theory empowers learners with mentoring and guidance, promoting both autonomy and responsibility in the learning experiences.
The nursing faculty acknowledges the core competencies of The Scope of Practice for Academic Nurse Educators (NLN, 2005) and aspires to incorporate these eight competencies in their daily teaching activities. The faculty also acknowledges the importance of evidence-based nursing education and strives to incorporate best practices into their teaching.
© 2006 College of DuPage
