Walden NURS6001 Full Course Latest 2018 September

NURS-6001 Foundations for Graduate Study

Week 1 Discussion

Mission, Vision, and Personal Goals

Are you familiar with Walden University’s vision and mission? Were they a factor in selecting this University? How do they relate to your professional and academic goals? Does it matter if there is a tight or loose relationship or one at all? This week’s Discussion asks you to think about how the Walden mission and vision and the School of Nursing (SON) mission and vision apply to your professional and academic goals. Is there a match? How does Walden's mission and vision relate to your becoming a scholar-practitioner committed to social change?

To prepare:

Review the Walden and SON mission and vision statements, Walden’s goals and University Outcomes, and the MSN Program Learning Outcomes presented in this week's Learning Resources.

Reflect on your professional and academic goals as they relate to your program/specialization.

Consider how the information in the documents, identified above, fit with your own goals and to your becoming a scholar-practitioner.

Think about how you will incorporate your commitment to social change into your professional and academic goals, particularly as it relates to the area(s) of interest represented by your program/specialization.

NURS-6001 Foundations for Graduate Study

Week 2 Discussion

Online Learning Strategies

Completing courses in the absence of a physical classroom and frequent face-to-face contact can be challenging, even for those who are comfortable with technology and the online environment. You need to be able to plan and manage your time well, particularly since there is no structured “class time”; communicate clearly and effectively where there is no visual or nonverbal feedback; and use technology effectively. This Discussion provides you with an opportunity to think about your skills in the above areas, to explore strategies for successful online learning, and exchange strategies with your colleagues.

To prepare:

Review this Week’s assigned readings from the Walden e-Guide and the document, “Technical Tips for Learning at Walden,” in the Learning Resources.

Review this week’s media program, "Tips for Effective Online Composition and Communication."

Think about some strategies you have used, or read about, that may be beneficial for effective planning, time management, communication, and technology use.

Consider how the strategies you have identified can contribute to being a successful online learner.

NURS-6001 Foundations for Graduate Study

Week 3 Discussion

Scholarly Writing and Plagiarism

As a nurse embarking on an advanced degree, you are developing the characteristics of a scholar-practitioner, which includes strong communication skills. Writing in a scholarly manner involves supporting your thoughts with evidence from the literature and appropriately using APA.

One of the challenges of scholarly writing is paraphrasing the thoughts of others in your work. Paraphrasing, and ly citing the original author for his or her ideas, allows you to take the ideas of others, summarize them, and incorporate them into your own writing. When summarizing the ideas of others, it is important to avoid plagiarizing (copying the words and ideas of others as though they were your own). In addition to expanding your knowledge of APA, this week’s Learning Resources help you to distinguish between paraphrasing and plagiarizing.

To prepare:

Think about the sometimes subtle difference between plagiarizing and paraphrasing.

Read the following paragraphs, which were written by Patricia O’Conner:

A good writer is one you can read without breaking a sweat. If you want a workout, you don’t lift a book—you lift weights. Yet we’re brainwashed to believe that the more brilliant the writer, the tougher the going.

The truth is that the reader is always right. Chances are, if something you’re reading doesn’t make sense, it’s not your fault—it’s the writer’s. And if something you write doesn’t get your point across, it’s probably not the reader’s fault—it’s yours. Too many readers are intimidated and humbled by what they can’t understand, and in some cases that’s precisely the effect the writer is after. But confusion is not complexity; it’s just confusion. A venerable tradition, dating back to the ancient Greek orators, teaches that if you don’t know what you’re talking about, just ratchet up the level of difficulty and no one will ever know.

Don’t confuse simplicity, though, with simplemindedness. A good writer can express an extremely complicated idea clearly and make the job look effortless. But such simplicity is a difficult thing to achieve because to be clear in your writing you have to be clear in your thinking. This is why the simplest and clearest writing has the greatest power to delight, surprise, inform, and move the reader. You can’t have this kind of shared understanding if writer and reader are in an adversary relationship. (pp. 195–196)

Source: O’Conner, P. (2003). Woe is I: The grammarphobe’s guide to better English in plain English. New York: Riverhead Books.

Paraphrase this passage from O’Conner using no more than 75–100 words. Remember that paraphrasing means summarizing the essence of the original text. It does not mean creating a thesaurus-based revision of the author’s original words or copying the piece, or any part of it, word for word. For this activity, do not use any direct quotes.

Turn your paraphrase into Grammarly and Safe Assign.

Review your reports.

Review the other tools, resources, and services available to you through the Walden Writing Center that support your growth as a scholarly writer.

Consider which of these resources you find to be most useful.

Review learning resources on APA formatting rules and information within the Walden Writing Center on APA.

NURS-6001 Foundations for Graduate Study

Week 4 Discussion

Using the Walden Library

Where can you find evidence to inform your thoughts and scholarly writing? Throughout your degree program, you will use the research literature to explore ideas, guide your thinking, and gain new insights. As you search the research literature, it is important to use resources that are peer-reviewed and from scholarly journals. You may already have some favorite online resources and databases that you use or have found useful in the past. For this Discussion and this week’s Assignment, you explore databases available through the Walden Library.

Note: Review the Assignment and complete the relevant items in the To prepare section prior to engaging in the Discussion.

To prepare:

Review the information presented in the Learning Resources for using the Walden Library, searching the databases, and evaluating online resources.

Begin searching for a peer-reviewed article that pertains to your practice area and is of particular interest to you.

Identify the database that you used to search for a peer-reviewed article in your area of practice and interest.

Reflect on your experience with searching the database. Did you note any difficulties when searching for an article? What steps/strategies did you find helpful for locating a peer-reviewed article? Would this database be useful to your colleagues? Would you recommend this database?

Once you have select your peer-reviewed article, evaluate its strengths and weaknesses in terms of scholarly writing, bias, opinion, quality of evidence, and appropriateness to its target audience.

NURS-6001 Foundations for Graduate Study

Week 6 Discussion

Critical Thinking

Recall your early clinical nursing experiences—what guided your decisions? Did you practice nursing ‘by the book’? Now, consider how you make decisions today. How have your clinical experiences fostered a greater depth of knowledge and critical thinking?

This week’s Learning Resources explore skill development and levels of knowledge acquisition based on clinical experience. For example, Benner suggests that as a nurse gains more experience, knowledge and skill level increases. Nurses move from novices—making decisions based on rules—to experts who are able to see connections between actions and outcomes using critical thinking. This Discussion focuses on the role of critical thinking in nursing practice and the connection between critical thinking, clinical competence, and scholarship.

To prepare:

Review the Learning Resources focusing on critical thinking and Benner’s interpretation of the Novice to Expert theory.

Reflect on how critical thinking is used in clinical practice. How does critical thinking relate to, or support, clinical competence?

What critical thinking strategies do you use to improve your clinical competence and thus move from novice to expert?

Consider the connection between critical thinking, nursing practice, and scholarship.

NURS-6001 Foundations for Graduate Study

Week 5 Assignment

Assignment: Application:

Professional Development Plan

The Program of Study (POS) for your specialization and the Professional Development Plan (PDP) help you to become familiar with the courses you will take, when they will be completed, and how the degree program fits into your overall academic and professional goals. For this Assignment, you write a Professional Development Plan to submit to the Week 5 Assignment submission link.

Throughout your degree program you will create a professional portfolio. In each course, one Assignment will be designated for inclusion in your portfolio. This portfolio provides a rich opportunity to evidence your growth as a scholar-practitioner. For this course, your PDP will serve as the artifact for your Portfolio.

Note: As you progress through the program, ensure that you save all of your portfolio assignments on your computer and to backup those files to a secure device such as a flash drive or external hard drive. You will have a variety of Instructors throughout your program, and it is your responsibility to save these assignments for your portfolio.

TIP: Create a new folder for each course on your computer’s hard drive using the course number and title. Within each course folder, create an additional folder and label it “Portfolio.” Then, save the Portfolio assignment with a clear title such as “Professional Development Plan.”

To prepare:

Review the information on the Program of Study (POS) and Professional Development Plan (PDP) presented in this week's Learning Resources.

Review the Week 5 Assignment Rubric presented in this week's Learning Resources.

Develop your Professional Development Plan (PDP) following the example presented in the Learning Resources and the assignment grading rubric criteria. Ensure that all content required is included in paper.

By Day 7

To complete:

Utilizing Microsoft Word, begin by formatting the paper in APA (i.e. title page, double space, Times New Roman size 12 font, headers, page numbers, headings).

To ensure that all content required is included in the paper, review Week 5 Professional Development Plan assignment rubric and the Professional Development Plan example.

Write your PDP using scholarly writing, grammar, and proper APA citations. Review the APA Basics Checklist: Citations, Reference List, and Style to make sure that your citations are . This document should represent your best professional effort.

Due by Day 7 of this week.

Submission and Grading Information

To submit your completed Assignment for review and grading, do the following:

Please save your Assignment using the naming convention “WK05Assgn+last name+first initial.(extension)” as the name.

Click the Week 5 Assignment Rubric to review the Grading Criteria for the Assignment.

Click the Week 5 Assignment link. You will also be able to “View Rubric” for grading criteria from this area.

Next, from the Attach File area, click on the Browse My Computer button. Find the document you saved as “WK05Assgn+last name+first initial.(extension)” and click Open.

If applicable: From the Plagiarism Tools area, click the checkbox for I agree to submit my paper(s) to the Global Reference Database.

Click on the Submit button to complete your submission.

NURS-6001 Foundations for Graduate Study

Week 1 Quiz

Question 1

Students can always edit their posting in Discussion.

Question 2

Students should avoid referencing Wikipedia as a scholarly resource in their assignments.

Question 3

Where in your online course will you find the contact information for your Instructor?

Question 4

In which area will you retrieve written assignments with comments from your instructor?

Question 5

When you submit an assignment, when should you have the assignment complete by on the day assigned?

Question 6

If you have a question about which courses you should register for next term, who should you contact?

Selected Answer:

Question 7

If you are having trouble accessing your online classroom, what should you do first?

Question 8

Since your online classroom could unexpectedly time out on occasion, what should you do before submitting a long Discussion posting?

Question 9

Online students are expected to behave with academic integrity and honesty.

Question 10

When sending and e-mail to your Instructor or any Walden staff, your e-mail should:

Question 11

In an online course, students can participate in the online classroom and submit assignments whenever it is convenient for them to do so.

Question 12

As long as you save your work to your home computer's hard drive, you are safe.

Question 13

Who should you contact with questions about online classroom technical concerns?

Question 14

When will you lose access to your completed courses (excluding this Student Readiness Orientation)?

Question 15

The online classroom area where you can post an assignment and have your classmates and instructor respond to your ideas is called: