Three Years to Promotion, Five Roles to Grow: A Clinical Assistant Professor's Development Plan With One Goal per Role, the Evidence Behind Each Method and a File That Builds Itself
Student Name
American College of Education
NUR6013: Multi-Dimensional Professorial Role in Nursing Education
Module 6 Assignment
Instructor Name
April 8, 2030
Where the Plan Starts
This course has examined my role from five angles. My self-rating against the NLN competencies showed that I am strongest in clinical teaching and learner socialization and weakest in assessment design, curriculum and scholarship (Halstead, 2019). The comparison with other educators showed what my clinical-track appointment asks of me and what it does not protect. Testing my handoff project against the six standards of scholarly work (Glassick, 2000) showed that good teaching is not yet scholarship. My service log showed twice the service my appointment assumes, much of it uncounted. And tracing my transition showed that I am forming an educator's identity while still grieving a clinical one. My promotion review is in three years. This plan sets one goal for each of five roles, chooses methods for reaching it and shows what evidence each will produce for my file.
Choosing Methods That Work
Faculty development is not equally effective in every form. A systematic review of 111 studies of faculty development initiatives designed to improve teaching effectiveness found high satisfaction and frequent gains in knowledge, skills and self-reported teaching behavior, and identified key features of effective programs: evidence-informed educational design, relevant content, experiential learning, feedback and reflection, educational projects, intentional community building, longitudinal design and institutional support (Steinert et al., 2016). A one-time workshop with none of those features is unlikely to change my teaching. I used the review's features as a test for every method in this plan: each method must involve practice, feedback or a project, extend over time where possible and have some form of institutional support.
Five Goals
Teaching. Goal: by the end of year two, my classroom teaching will be rated at the same level as my clinical teaching on peer observation, and every examination I write will be built from a blueprint with item analysis reviewed after each use. Methods: the university's year-long teaching academy, which meets monthly and requires a redesigned course session with peer observation and feedback; and a standing review of my examinations with the assessment coordinator. Evidence: peer observation reports, redesigned session materials and item analysis summaries showing improvement in discrimination indices.
Scholarship. Goal: by the end of year three, two peer-reviewed dissemination products, the handoff study presented at a regional conference and submitted as a brief report, and an integrative review on teaching in intensive care units submitted for publication. Methods: the handoff project redesigned in Module 3, with the associate dean for scholarship as mentor; and a writing group of four clinical-track faculty meeting every two weeks. Evidence: approval letters, abstracts, submissions and reviews.
Service. Goal: keep service within eight hours a week averaged over a semester, with at least half in activities my promotion file counts. Methods: the log from Module 4, reviewed monthly, and the question I adopted there for every new request. Evidence: the log and a summary of committee contributions and outcomes.
Advising. Goal: meet every advisee in the first three weeks of each semester and contact every advisee below the progression threshold at midterm within one week. Methods: the proactive advising schedule from Module 4, with a simple tracking sheet. Evidence: the tracking sheet and advisee retention compared with the department average.
Clinical practice. Goal: maintain critical care competence through one per diem shift a month and renew my specialty certification on schedule. Methods: the per diem arrangement begun this year. Evidence: shift records, certification renewal and continuing education credits.
Sequencing Over Three Years
Five goals at once would recreate the overload that the service log exposed, so the plan staggers them. Year one concentrates on teaching and the handoff project: the teaching academy runs through the year, the institutional review board application goes in over the summer and data collection begins in the fall. Service and advising changes start immediately because they cost little additional time. Year two adds the integrative review and the writing group, and the handoff results are presented in the spring. Once my years of teaching satisfy the NLN's eligibility rules, I will also take its nurse educator certification examination, as a summative check on the competencies I rated weakest in Module 1. Year three is for completing the brief report and the review, and assembling the promotion file in the fall.
The mentoring I proposed for new faculty in Module 5 applies to me as well. Reviewed evidence on mentoring faculty outside the tenure track points to structured, role-specific mentoring as what helps them progress and publish (Cullen et al., 2017). I have asked a senior clinical-track colleague who was promoted last year to meet me each semester to review progress against this plan and to read my promotion file in draft.
Risks and What I Will Protect
Every plan meets the semester it was not written for. Three risks are foreseeable. The first is teaching load. If the department is short of clinical instructors, as it was this year, I may be asked to take a third clinical group, which would consume the time set aside for the handoff study. I have agreed with my chair that an extra group in year one would move the study back a semester rather than squeeze it into evenings, and I have written that agreement into my annual review. The second is the study itself. Institutional review can take longer than expected, the other instructors may not keep to the old handoff approach for the comparison semester and the results may show no difference. A null result is still a result, and the plan counts the presentation of an honest finding as meeting the scholarship goal. The third is my own tendency, visible in the service log, to say yes. The monthly review of the log is there to catch it early.
Some parts of the plan I will protect even if others slip. The per diem shift is one, because it keeps both my clinical competence and the part of my identity that makes me credible to students. Proactive advising is another, because its cost is small and its effect falls on students who might otherwise leave the program. If the plan must shrink in a difficult semester, the integrative review will wait before either of these does.
A File That Builds Itself
The practical test of the plan is whether, in three years, my promotion file will already be mostly written. Each goal names the evidence it produces, and I will collect it as I go in a folder organized by the promotion guidelines' categories: teaching, scholarship, service and professional development. At the end of each semester I will add a one-paragraph reflection for each role, recording what changed and what I would do differently, which will become the narrative of the file. A plan that produces its own evidence is harder to abandon than one that depends on remembering what I did. I will repeat the NLN competency self-rating each spring, with the outside ratings from my chair and co-teacher, and revise this plan when the results show that a role needs more attention than I expected.
References
Cullen, D., Shieh, C., McLennon, S. M., Pike, C., Hartman, T., & Shah, H. (2017). Mentoring nontenured track nursing faculty: A systematic review. Nurse Educator, 42(6), 290-294. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNE.0000000000000394
Glassick, C. E. (2000). Boyer's expanded definitions of scholarship, the standards for assessing scholarship, and the elusiveness of the scholarship of teaching. Academic Medicine, 75(9), 877-880. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001888-200009000-00007
Halstead, J. A. (Ed.). (2019). NLN core competencies for nurse educators: A decade of influence. National League for Nursing.
Steinert, Y., Mann, K., Anderson, B., Barnett, B. M., Centeno, A., Naismith, L., Prideaux, D., Spencer, J., Tullo, E., Viggiano, T., Ward, H., & Dolmans, D. (2016). A systematic review of faculty development initiatives designed to enhance teaching effectiveness: A 10-year update: BEME Guide No. 40. Medical Teacher, 38(8), 769-786. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2016.1181851
How this NUR 6013 Module 6 example is structured
NUR 6013 Module 6 frequently closes with a professional development plan across the educator's roles; your classroom's instructions decide the format. This example synthesizes earlier analyses into goals for each role, justifies the methods with evidence on what makes faculty development effective, sets a realistic timeline against institutional deadlines and states the evidence each goal will produce.
NUR6013 Module 6 questions, answered
What does NUR6013 Module 6 usually ask for?
NUR6013 Module 6 frequently asks for a professional development plan across the nurse educator's roles, such as teaching, scholarship, service and practice. Your classroom's instructions decide the format and time frame.
How many goals should the plan include?
One clear, measurable goal per role is usually enough. More goals are harder to sequence and monitor, and graders value realism over length.
How do I justify development methods?
Use evidence on what makes faculty development effective, such as experiential learning, feedback, projects and longitudinal programs, and show that your chosen methods have those features.
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.