Welcome to Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga as we use stories to connect the past to the present and then our future as we reimagine our teaching and learning. As we celebrate the NLN Year of the Nurse Educator, we pay tribute to extraordinary nurses who've made significant contributions to nursing education. We dive into the stories of nurse educators who recognize to need, challenged traditional customs, and influenced transformative change.
doctors Em Bevis, Nancy Diekelmann, Christine Tanner, Peggy Chinn, David Allen, Patricia Benner, Deborah Spunt, and Verle Waters whose work we highlighted throughout this year, invited nurse educators more than three decades ago to begin a dialogue that was risky and unconventional. They asked nurse educators to talk about change and to legitimize the understanding that reform
was needed in nursing education. Their words and writings stimulated cutting-edge thinking about how teachers teach and how students learn. They asked the nursing education community to be open to new ideas and to embrace the teaching of inquiry, reflection, criticism, clinical judgment, and caring and to address the oppressive power dynamic between teacher and student. They were radical thinkers and thoughtful advocates of
reform with a powerful message. They saw the world of nursing and nursing education with a new lens.
For those of us who share a commitment to educational reform and value highly the role we play in bringing integrity and quality to nursing education, we are indebted to our curriculum revolutionary colleagues for their resilience, for their thoughtful advocacy of nursing's moral commitment to society's need for a competent and efficient nursing workforce, and for their steadfastness to question traditional educational practices that challenge excellence
in open dialogue. We recognize that dramatic change and transformation at the instructional and curricular levels of nursing education did not occur during and immediately following the NLN Curriculum Revolution, despite a national effort by the NLN to launch, support, publish, and disseminate ideas, perspectives, and innovative strategies fostered by leaders of the revolution. Certainly there were pockets of innovation, but a sustained and comprehensive redesign
of nursing education did not happen. As is true in all revolutions, the ideas advocated by the curriculum revolutionaries were celebrated by some, marginalized by many, and resisted by others. And yet, over time, many of the revolutionary ideas and thoughtful insights embraced by Curriculum Revolution leaders have endured and provide us with the foundation to reconsider new ways to conceptualize curriculum and relationships with students in the context of the educational
environment. The release of the National Academy of Medicine Future of Nursing 2020-2030 report and its chapter focused on nursing education clearly suggests that the decade ahead will challenge the discipline of nursing and nursing education in new and complex ways. Nursing education will require unique changes in what is taught, how it is taught, who the students are, and who teaches them.
Building nurse educator expertise in the use of teaching strategies that enhance higher level reasoning skills is paramount for both the next generation of learners and more importantly, in building a nursing workforce that can critically think to deliver safe and effective care in our complex healthcare environments. Change must be targeted in these areas to enhance the acquisition of new competencies, work effectively outside of acute care settings, and build cultures of health
and health equity. The National League for Nursing continues to challenge and support nurse educators in education excellence evidenced in publications recently over the last several years that include: the Hallmarks of Excellence in Nursing Education, NLN Core Competencies for Nurse Educators: A Decade of Influence, and NLN Vision Statements focused on the use of advancing teaching strategies and faculty expertise to teach higher level
reasoning skills throughout a program of learning. These publications advocate for faculty development and importantly engaging our practice partners as we extend and operationalize new brain-based teaching and learning strategies for our next generation of professionals. As we conclude a year highlighting the profound contributions of the NLN Curriculum Revolution, to accomplish these innovations, we will continue
to look to the past and celebrate its lessons. We stand on the shoulders of those curriculum leaders who chose to speak about reform and radical possibility. The richness of their powerful ideas lay the foundation for future directions through the NLN's Saga series and in our work to archive NLN's most significant publications
from the Curriculum Revolution. We honor these revolutionaries, profound thinkers leaders, and reformers who spearheaded the revolution with resolve and evidence-based, far-reaching, new, and transformative approaches to curriculum design. In the words of Dr. Christine Tanner, "let the revolution continue." And so the Saga continues and may our Saga continue as we bring to a close this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga. Thank you for joining us