| Course | NUR 5233 Curriculum Development, Assessment, and Evaluation in Nursing |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 2 |
| Paper type | Program outcomes and curriculum map |
| Length | 1,170 words, about 4 pages plus title and reference pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | American College of Education |
| Program | MSN Nurse Educator |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NUR 5233 Module 2
Eight Outcomes, Five Semesters, No Orphans: Writing Program and Course Outcomes for an Accelerated BSN and Mapping Where Each Is Introduced, Reinforced and Assessed
Student Name
American College of Education
NUR5233: Curriculum Development, Assessment, and Evaluation in Nursing
Module 2 Assignment
Instructor Name
July 18, 2028
Principles for Writing Outcomes
The Module 1 analysis set four priorities for the accelerated BSN revision: organize around demonstrated competence aligned with the Essentials, teach and assess clinical judgment throughout, use clinical time strategically and fit accelerated learners. The program outcomes are the first expression of those priorities, and the task force wrote them to four rules. Each outcome describes what a graduate will be able to do, not what the program will cover. Each uses a verb that names observable performance, taken from the higher levels of the revised version of Bloom's taxonomy, such as apply, analyze, evaluate and create, since end-of-program outcomes describe complex performance (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Each maps to one or more domains of the Essentials (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2021). And there are few enough outcomes, eight, that every course can be traced to them and every faculty member can remember them.
The Eight Program Outcomes
By the end of the program, the graduate will be able to: first, integrate knowledge from nursing science and the graduate's prior degree to plan and deliver care for individuals across the lifespan; second, provide person-centered care that respects each person's values, culture and preferences, in partnership with patients and families; third, use clinical judgment to recognize, prioritize and respond to changes in the condition of several patients at once; fourth, apply population health principles to promote health and reduce disparities in the region's rural and urban communities; fifth, evaluate evidence and apply it to practice decisions; sixth, use quality improvement and safety science to reduce risk of harm at the individual and system levels; seventh, collaborate with interprofessional teams and use information technology to coordinate care across settings; and eighth, demonstrate professional accountability, ethical practice and a plan for ongoing personal and professional development.
Several choices in these outcomes reflect the forces analyzed earlier. The first outcome acknowledges the accelerated learners' prior degrees. The third makes clinical judgment for multiple patients an explicit end-of-program expectation, responding to the practice partners' concern about readiness. The fourth names the region's rural communities, reflecting the university's mission. Each outcome aligns with one or more of the ten Essentials domains; for example, the third aligns with the domains of person-centered care, and quality and safety, and the seventh with interprofessional partnerships, systems-based practice and informatics.
Leveling Course Outcomes
Each program outcome is expressed at a different level in each semester, so that students progress from simpler to more complex performance. Leveling uses three dimensions: the complexity of the patient situation, the number of patients and the degree of independence. For the clinical judgment outcome, the first-semester course outcome reads: recognize relevant cues and analyze their meaning for one adult patient with a stable chronic condition, with faculty guidance. The third-semester outcome reads: prioritize hypotheses and generate responses for two to three patients with acute conditions, with minimal guidance. The fifth-semester outcome reads: manage care and respond to changes in condition for a full assignment of four to five patients, independently, with the preceptor available for consultation. The verb changes, but so do the patient, the number of patients and the distance between the student and the teacher, and all three have to move together.
The task force wrote leveled outcomes for all eight program outcomes across five semesters before assigning them to courses, so that the progression was designed first and the courses were fitted to it, rather than the reverse.
From Seventeen Courses to Fourteen
Writing the leveled outcomes first made the course structure easier to see. The current curriculum teaches pathophysiology, pharmacology and health assessment as three separate first-year courses, followed by a fundamentals course, so that students learn about heart failure in pathophysiology in January, its drugs in pharmacology in February and how to assess a patient with it in March, without ever putting the three together until the medical-surgical course in the second semester. The leveled outcomes for the first semester call for students to recognize and analyze cues in one patient, which requires all three kinds of knowledge at once. The task force therefore replaced the four courses with two integrated courses, Foundations of Clinical Judgment I and II, in which each week follows one condition from mechanism to drugs to assessment to nursing care, and in which accelerated students complete the foundational reading independently before class. The two specialty courses in mental health and maternal-newborn nursing remain separate because their clinical placements are distinct, and the leadership content is folded into the capstone, where students manage a full assignment and can practice delegation and prioritization in context. The result is 14 courses instead of 17, with the same total credits, fewer handoffs of content between courses and more room in each course for application.
The Curriculum Map
Harden (2001) describes curriculum mapping as a way of making the curriculum transparent by displaying the relationships among outcomes, content, learning opportunities and assessment, so that staff and students can see where and how each outcome is learned. The task force's map is a table with the eight program outcomes as rows and the redesigned program's 14 courses as columns. Each cell records whether the course introduces the outcome, reinforces it or assesses it for mastery, and names the specific assessment that provides evidence.
Reading the map revealed three problems that would otherwise have been invisible. First, the population health outcome was introduced in the first semester and then not addressed again until the community health course in the fourth, a gap of two semesters in which students had no opportunity to build on it. The task force added a population health component to the second and third medical-surgical courses, using the patients' home communities as the population. Second, the evidence-based practice outcome was assessed for mastery only by a research paper in the second semester, long before students had enough clinical experience to apply evidence meaningfully. The mastery assessment moved to an evidence-based practice project in the capstone. Third, the professional development outcome had no assessment at all in the first draft, an orphan outcome. A portfolio, begun in the first semester and assessed at the end of the program, now provides the evidence.
Keeping the Map Honest
A curriculum map becomes inaccurate as soon as courses change, so the task force adopted three rules. Any change to a course's outcomes or major assessments must be accompanied by an updated map entry before the curriculum committee will approve it. Each course's syllabus will list the program outcomes it addresses and at which level, drawn directly from the map, so that students see the same connections faculty do. And each spring, the curriculum committee will review the map against the assessment data from the previous year, checking whether outcomes marked as assessed for mastery actually produced evidence of student achievement. That review is the bridge to the program evaluation plan in Module 5.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2021). The essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education.
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.
Harden, R. M. (2001). AMEE Guide No. 21: Curriculum mapping: A tool for transparent and authentic teaching and learning. Medical Teacher, 23(2), 123-137. https://doi.org/10.1080/01421590120036547
What the NUR 5233 Module 2 instructions ask for
In NUR 5233, Module 2 often asks you to write program and course outcomes and map them across the curriculum. Expect to state principles for writing outcomes, write program outcomes aligned with professional standards, level course outcomes so they progress, build a curriculum map showing where each outcome is introduced, reinforced and assessed, and read the map for problems. Many sections ask for the map as an attached table. The narrative usually comes to five pages plus the map. Canvas indicates how many program outcomes are expected and which standards they must align with.
How the NUR 5233 Module 2 example is put together
The paper starts with rules for writing outcomes: one observable verb, a level that fits the end of the program and a link to a standard. The outcomes section writes all eight in full and explains how several answer the forces from Module 1, such as clinical judgment and population health. The leveling section defines its dimensions, complexity, independence and setting, and shows one outcome across three semesters, with a highlighted sentence on what makes progression checkable. A section shows how leveled outcomes made three courses redundant. The map section describes rows, columns and codes and reports three problems found by reading it, an outcome never assessed, a long gap and mastery assessed too early, with the fix for each. Governance rules close it.
NUR 5233 Module 2 rubric: what full marks look like
Outcomes and mapping papers are graded on the quality of the outcomes and the use of the map. Principles credit requires explicit rules linked to sources. Outcome marks reward eight measurable outcomes aligned with standards. The leveling row rewards progression shown with defined dimensions and a worked example. Graders give substantial credit when outcomes drive structural decisions, such as reducing courses. The map row usually decides the top band: the map must be read and the problems it reveals reported with changes. Governance rules and APA 7 complete the grade. A course reduction that follows from leveled outcomes shows outcome-driven design, which graders value more than a map built around existing courses. A short governance rule keeps the map current after the paper is written.
Common NUR 5233 Module 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Outcomes papers most often write outcomes with verbs such as understand or appreciate, which cannot be assessed. Another frequent weakness is a curriculum map built and never read. Students also level outcomes by repeating the same sentence with harder verbs. Write observable verbs. Define what changes from level to level. Read the map for orphans, gaps and premature mastery. Report what you changed. Assign someone to keep the map current. If your program is an ADN, an RN to BSN or a nurse residency, the desk can draft outcomes and a map for it. Check that every outcome has at least one assessed cell. Name the map's owner.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official American College of Education document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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NUR 5233 Module 2 questions, answered
What does NUR5233 Module 2 usually ask for?
NUR5233 Module 2 often asks you to write program and course outcomes for a nursing curriculum and to map them across courses, showing where each is introduced, reinforced and assessed. Your classroom's instructions decide the number of outcomes and the map format.
How many program outcomes should a curriculum have?
Usually between six and ten. Enough to cover the professional standards, few enough that every course can be traced to them and faculty can keep them in mind.
What should I look for when reading a curriculum map?
Outcomes that are never assessed, long gaps between introduction and reinforcement, mastery assessed too early, and content repeated at the same level in several courses.
Where can I find a free NUR 5233 Module 2 sample paper?
Read it above at no cost: "Principles for Writing Outcomes", "From Seventeen Courses to Fourteen" and "Keeping the Map Honest" make up this NUR 5233 Module 2 program outcomes and curriculum map.
What does introduced, reinforced and assessed mean on a curriculum map?
Each cell shows whether a course first introduces an outcome, practices and builds it, or formally assesses mastery. Reading across a row shows whether every outcome moves from introduction to assessment.