Master’s in Nursing Education learning outcomes 

When you graduate with a Master’s in Nursing Education degree, you will be able to:

• Apply advanced knowledge in the science of a specialty area of advanced nursing practice.
• Use emerging information and health technologies to access current research and health care data to improve patient care and health equity.
• Make sound, culturally appropriate and ethically grounded judgments based on critical analysis of the best available evidence.
• Demonstrate leadership skills essential for influencing policy and organizational systems to improve patient outcomes and health equity.
• Determine learning outcomes for selected learner groups, written at the appropriate level of achievement and relevant to the learner’s educational needs and level.
• Design, implement and evaluate competency-based learning activities for face-to-face and online modalities, simulation, lab and clinical settings. Activities focus on central nursing competencies, including evidence-based practice, clinical judgment, ethical reasoning and quality improvement, using sound pedagogical and instructional design principles.
• Facilitate a collaborative learning environment, including inclusive educational practices and recognition of individual variations in learning styles and cultural understanding. Incorporate these into instructional planning, accessibility and assessment.
• Integrate concepts of social determinants of health and health equity into educational design to improve health outcomes through nursing education.
• Create equitable methods to assess achievement of learning outcomes.
• Incorporate emerging technologies into educational practice.
• Participate in curriculum development, program evaluation and improvement initiatives.
• Formulate a sustainable professional nurse educator identity that reflects the ethics of the profession and fosters personal health and well-being.

NURS 513: Concepts of Advanced Nursing Knowledge and Leadership

3 credits. The purpose of this course is to explore core concepts that are essential to performing current and emerging roles in health care delivery and design. Advanced nursing knowledge and higher-level leadership skills for improving health outcomes are examined. Select content in organizational systems leadership and quality improvement, informatics and technology, health policy, population health and professional role issues will be introduced.  

NURS 524: Evaluating Evidence

3 credits. This course focuses on the evaluation of evidence for health care practice and the care environment. Emphasis is placed on the skills needed to identify, access, and critique the various forms of evidence that inform practice decision. Focus is primarily on students’ emerging abilities to identify strengths, limitations, and gaps in evidence as well as generate questions.  

NURS 559/659: Understanding Social Determinants of Health

3 credits. This course focuses on the social determinants of health and their influence on health outcomes. Factors that contribute to the development of vulnerable populations and health disparities will be explored. Opportunities to appraise existing available tools and resources for learning and communicating about social determinants of health and health disparities for a focus population will be provided. Implications for nursing education, research, practice, and policy development are explored.  

NURS 561/661: Best Practices in Teaching Nursing

4 credits. This course emphasizes best practices in the science of learning as applied to performance-based curriculum models and instructional design. Students will review best practices in higher education and teaching for health care professionals and have the opportunity to define educational goals and align the goals with assessment of learning, learning activities, and selection of instructional strategies. Students will have the opportunity to gain skills in designing and conducting learning activities and guiding learners using active learning strategies.  

NURS 562/662: Learning Assessment in Nursing

2 credits. This course introduces approaches, processes, and tools that can be used to assess learning especially in a practice discipline. Topics include design of performance assessment tasks, development of instructional rubrics to aid student learning and to guide performance assessment, test development and analysis, issues in grading achievement and course/program evaluation.  

NURS 564/664: Clinical Teaching

3 credits. This course examines a variety of clinical teaching models. It emphasizes the design of clinical learning experiences, drawing on studies of human learning, novice-expert development, clinical judgment and clinical education. Students will be guided through the identification of key competencies and relevant and predictable clinical learning opportunities in their practice settings. Issues in clinical education, staff-faculty and student-faculty interactions and in the national movement for clinical education reform will be explored.  

NURS 509AA/609AA: Practicum in Teaching

3 credits. This course provides students with the opportunity to design, implement and evaluate a variety of learning experiences appropriate to the course environment and outcomes expected of the designated learners. Opportunity to use several different teaching modalities will be provided, including classroom, seminar, clinical, laboratory and online.

NURS 563/663: Simulation in Nursing Education

3 credits. Students will be introduced to the theoretical basis for simulation-based learning experiences as well as the standards of best practice in simulation education. Current simulation pedagogies will be explored. Opportunities to participate in realistic (high fidelity) simulation will be integrated, using scenario development, debriefing and assessment strategies. Emphasis will be placed on simulations that include clinical judgement, teamwork, interprofessional communication, and resource management. Prerequisites: One year of graduate coursework and permission of instructor. 

NURS 591/691: Online Teaching

3 credits. This elective course introduces online teaching techniques and technologies. Students will explore applications of e-learning in a variety of settings and discuss how constructivist theories apply to online teaching and learning. A practical, hands-on approach to apply a wide variety of online tools as well as a blend of synchronous and asynchronous components will be used to model an effective online course.  

NURS 538/638: Emerging Trends in Nursing Education Curriculum

2 credits. This course addresses philosophical and pedagogical approaches to developing curriculum in academic and service settings. Emphasis is given to developing and analyzing curriculum that is congruent with institutional and program mission, philosophy and goals, professional standards, and the needs and expectations of an educational institution’s community of interest. Essential components of curriculum evaluation will be introduced and legal, ethical and accreditation issues related to curriculum design and content will be explored.  

NURS 554A: Inclusive Educational Practice Series: Theory, Assessment, and Planning

2 credits. This course provides learners the opportunity to explore factors that influence creating a welcoming academic learning environment where all can succeed and thrive. The science of learning and facilitators and barriers to learning will be reviewed. Topics explored will include belonging, mindset, trauma-informed educational practices, and accommodations for learners with disabilities. This course provides learners an authentic service-learning opportunity to work with the nursing educational community on an identified project to improve inclusion and belonging. This course will focus on stakeholder engagement and problem assessment and initial search for solutions. 

NURS 554B: Inclusive Educational Practice 2: Recommendations and Implementation

1 credit. This course provides learners an authentic service-learning opportunity to work with the nursing educational community on an identified project to improve inclusion and belonging. Opportunities will be provided to propose recommended strategies to select nursing education practices to improve inclusion and to support stakeholders in implementing change. 

NURS 510: Health Assessment and Health Promotion in Vulnerable Populations

3 credits. This course focuses on the development of health assessment skills that inform clinical decision making and planning for clinical care. Students will practice health assessment skills and gain advanced knowledge of health promotion, health protection, and disease prevention across the life span including learning about self-health as well as client health practices. Current trends will be described and discussed to examine health indicators among vulnerable populations. Using specific case-based exercises. Students are guided in how to make in-depth assessments of clients experiencing a variety of conditions specific to their clinical focus.  

NURS 511: Current Issues in Pharmacology: A Pathophysiologic Approach

4 credits. This course builds on knowledge of the basic principles of pharmacology to establish a knowledge base for nurse educators to provide safe and effective teaching related to is on the clinical use of drugs commonly used in a variety of settings for a range of pathophysiological problems. Principles of pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and pharmacotherapeutics of selected categories of drugs are explored reviewed along with the associated relevant pathophysiology. Using a case study approach, students will learn how to engage learners and to facilitate their retention of specific pharmacological content, and the achievement of outcomes related to the application of medication related knowledge and skills.  

NURS 551/651: Complex Health Conditions

3 credits. In this course, students will gain advanced knowledge in understanding and intervening with complex health conditions related to individuals and populations in their practice area the nursing care of older adults experiencing common geriatric syndromes. This course will provide opportunities for students to apply this knowledge in the context of educating current and future health care professionals through case-based learning activities. Prerequisites: None. 

NURS 552/652: Understanding & Intervening in Common Mental Health Problems of Elders (Option for Adult Gerontology Focus)

3 credits. This course focuses on the major mental health issues faced by older adults and their family caregivers: dementia, delirium, depression. Other mental health issues that affect the older population are also covered, including substance abuse and issues at end-of-life. The theoretical and research base for mental health nursing interventions will be presented. Emphasis will be placed on helping nurses in research and advanced practice understand the specific dynamics of the older adult’s mental health concerns and develop interventions, programs or research tailored to meet the needs of older individuals and their family members or caregivers across a variety of settings.  

NURS 509GG: Focus in Adult Geriatric Health (Option for Adult Gerontology Focus)

3 credits. This course provides the potential for clinical placements in students’ home communities throughout the year, dependent on appropriate supervision. In addition, clinical intensives will be offered in specialty clinics at the OHSU Portland campus and will provide opportunities for in-depth advanced practice experiences with clients experiencing a variety of conditions, including dementia, depression, frailty, incontinence and end of-life issues.  

NURS 552/652: Understanding and Intervening in Common Mental Health Problems of the Elderly (Option for Psych Mental Health)

3 credits. This course focuses on the major mental health issues faced by older adults and their family caregivers: dementia, delirium, depression. Other mental health issues that affect the older population are also covered, including substance abuse and issues at end-of-life. The theoretical and research base for mental health nursing interventions will be presented. Emphasis will be placed on helping nurses in research and advanced practice understand the specific dynamics of the older adult’s mental health concerns and develop interventions, programs or research tailored to meet the needs of older individuals and their family members or caregivers across a variety of settings. Prerequisites: NURS 571B for PMHNP students or permission from faculty for other specialties.   

NURS 509BB: Focus in Psychiatric Mental Health (Option for Psychiatric Mental Health Focus)

3 credits. This course provides an opportunity for graduate students to apply concepts from didactic coursework into clinical practice with psychiatric mental health clients, their families and communities according to their defined scope of practice. Students are responsible for defining a set of clinical goals for each practicum and identifying a setting and preceptor to assist with accomplishing those goals.  

NURS 547/647: Introduction to Epidemiology & Population Health (Option for Community Health)

3 credits. In this course, students will gain introductory knowledge of epidemiologic principles and their practical application to health and health care. Students will apply epidemiologic methods to answer questions about the distribution of disease, death, disability and risk exposures in populations. The concepts of rates, risk, study design, and causal relationships between exposures and health outcomes as they pertain to select populations will be introduced.  

NURS 509A: Focus in Population Health (Option for Community Health)

3 credits. This course develops and refines a student’s competency in managing: a population, an educational program, or health services. Within one of these contexts, the student takes a role in initiating, managing, or sustaining, collaborative efforts related to a change and or improvement in services.