Developing Critical Thinking Curriculum
An advisory committee from 13 PLS participating hospitals assisted in the creation of this curricula designed to help educators identify the competency, performance criteria and learning needed to develop critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills. This curriculum includes foundational content as well as recommended activities for ongoing learning and support. Applicable for a wide audience, this curriculum is broken up by content for bedside clinicians and educators, preceptors and managers.
Materials referenced include:
- PLS Courses
- PLS App Tools
- Instructor-Led Trainings and Simulation Activities
- Children’s Mercy Kansas City’s BLACK CLOUDTM Nursing Critical Thinking Game
View the Curriculum.
Webinar Recordings
Presented by Mary Ann Jessee, PhD, RN, Associate Professor, Assistant Dean for Academics, Generalist Nursing Practice, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.
Strategies for Fostering Clinical Reasoning and Judgment in Clinical Practice (Part 1)
In this session, Dr. Jessee explains the concepts of critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and clinical judgment and their importance to clinical practice. She describes the cognitive processes behind clinical reasoning and judgment that are critical to educator ability to foster learners’ skills. Dr. Jessee uses simulated scenarios to show clinical coaching (questioning, teaching, and feedback) in action with a new-graduate nurse. She describes a usable algorithm to foster educator ability to guide learners’ continued development of clinical reasoning and judgment.
Clinical Coaching to Enhance Clinical Judgment in Practice (Part 2)
In this session, Dr. Jessee uses educators’ real-life scenarios to facilitate attendee identification and discussion of effective clinical coaching using the clinical coaching algorithm explained in Strategies for Fostering Clinical Reasoning and Judgment in Clinical Practice (Part 1). Dr. Jessee collaborated with the learners to analyze how the actions of the educator impacted the growth of the staff with suggestions for positive change.
Articles, Graphics, and More
Understanding the Next Generation of Pediatric Clinicians
Staff from PLS researched the current health care learning landscape to assess new emerging trends. This included discussions around the challenges and opportunities hospitals are facing in educating their staff, changes in the learning landscape, and potential solutions going forward.