IntroductionOne of the most important responsibilities of an educator is selecting teaching

IntroductionOne of the most important responsibilities of an educator is selecting teaching and learning strategies that are related to the desired aims and outcomes of the curriculum, appropriate to the student’s level of skills and knowledge and challenging enough to motivate learning (Gardner & Suplee, 2010). The curriculum that I have designed for ‘Professional Certificate in Musculoskeletal Casting and Splinting’ will be integrated into the ‘Certificate in Emergency Nursing’ course in Waterford Institute of Technology; it will be worth 10 ECTS credits, Level 8 NQF with 200 contact hours for the students. Rationale for proceedingHaving completed a comprehensive review of all the courses available in Ireland for nurses, I found the only one in Ireland is in the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI) in Dublin, which would make it less accessible for nurses around the country. The rationale for the proposed curriculum is as follows:• There is a substantial need for orthopaedic education in the South East of Ireland.• There is only one available course like my proposed curriculum that is available in Ireland which is in Dublin and as previously mentioned is less accessible to nurses outside of Leinster. • To provide a quality service to patients.• To reduce the financial costs to the Health Service Executive (HSE) by giving nurses specialised education. According to An Bord Altranais (2000) it is essential for each nurse/midwife to engage in continuing professional development following registration in order to acquire new knowledge and competence, which will enable him/her to practice effectively in an ever changing health care environment. Teaching and Learning StrategiesFink’s model for course design (2003, 2004) can be used to develop new courses or redesign existing courses. As I was considering how to design my Professional Certificate in Musculoskeletal Casting/ Splinting I came up with 7 learning outcomes (see Appendix 1). The choice of learning outcomes was personal and based on research in the area of teaching and learning. Based on my previous experiences in the classroom, I wanted to get away from all lecture-based learning; this was achievable by having a limit of 15 students for the curriculum. As a nurse, I have a wealth of case studies to draw upon. My aim is to get students to respond well to real-life examples. In addition, I really liked the idea of building the skill base of my students in the hopes that they would take those skills with them beyond the classroom. The teaching-and-learning literature strongly emphasized the enjoyment and benefits of active learning (Goss Lucas, 2008; Knight, 2008). I turned to Finks (2003) taxonomy which provides the structure for assessing both course content and higher order thinking in six taxonomies which include;1. Foundational knowledge2. Application 3. Integration4. Human dimension5. Caring6. Learning how to learnInstead of assessing the learning outcomes (see Appendix 1) through context based examination, I designed the curriculum to incorporate assessment through the six taxonomies as mentioned above (see Appendix 2). Foundational knowledge will be assessed through a multiple choice question examination. Application and integration will be assessed through case studies in the online discussion forums. Here the students will be presented with real life problems and will be asked to show understanding and knowledge of same. Human dimension will be assessed through the written assignment which will incorporate new ideas and insights. Caring will be assessed at the end of the curriculum when the students will be asked to write a reflective piece about the course, its content and humanity in general. Effective teaching is imperative for student learning. Clinical application for students in which classroom learning is continued into professional practice is critical to nursing education programmes. The clinical learning environment can significantly impact student learning. Sharples et al (2012) states that “seamless learning occurs when a person experiences a continuity of learning across a combination of times, technologies or social situations”. As facilitators of nursing education, we need to ensure that our learners are processing the new knowledge delivered to them through our educational programmes (Xu, 2016). As nurse educators, it is important that we recognize and select appropriate teaching strategies in order to engage our learners and ensuring that they effectively process the information that we are teaching them to deliver high quality education.Blended learning will be used throughout the curriculum. Higher Education Academy (2017) states that blended learning can be used to deliver course content using a wide variety of methods including online activities, face to face interaction and ‘flipped classroom approach’. Chen, Lui & Martinelli (2017) believe that the ‘flipped classroom approach’ in comparison to traditional teaching methods where students attend a lecture, tutorial or seminar, where the learning is delivered to the students during and after the teaching, the flipped classroom turns this round so that most learning comes first, allowing the teaching session to reflect on the material and build on prior learning. Students will participate in a wide variety of assessments with different weighting for the course (see Appendix 2). The teaching strategies that I have chosen for my curriculum are;Online course content/ E-learning videosOnline learning can be defined as learning that takes places partially or entirely online (Grant & Courtoreille, 2007). It is helpful to nurses due to its flexibility, accessibility and cost effectiveness. The Professional Certificate in Musculoskeletal in Casting/ Splinting will be aimed at new graduates or “Generation Z”. Geck (2006) states that Generation Z students are the most electronically connected generation. Online course content will be posted every week.I will release specific readings in the resource area every week that will correlate with the next class content. By doing this I design to contribute to the student’s ability to develop critical thinking to the subject. These will be released 5 days prior to each class and will be discussed during the scheduled tutorials. Concept MappingA concept map is a graphic arrangement of key concepts related to patient care. The use of concept maps can help to cover content, student assessment and knowledge. This type of