Learning Competency

Competency in nursing looks at the abilities that they required to fulfil their roles as nurse. In the nursing course, it becomes very important for them institution to clearly define their competency as by establishing a foundation for the nursing and education curriculum.  It is thus very important that nursing students and the whole educator program  competencies and outcomes are in addition to the competencies and outcomes the will see the student meeting the requirement  of their whole nursing graduate program during the first year and recurrent years of study (Alvarado, Alfaro, Rivas, & Rodriguez, 2016).  The competency statements also provide the educator and the student with guidance on what to focus on during the preparation of nursing educators and scholars (Alvarado, Alfaro, Rivas, & Rodriguez, 2016). Also while the nursing practice competency may not be the direct result of education program, it provides the foundation of what is to be taught by all educators.

According to the National League for Nursing the four main competencies include:

1. Human Flourishing – where nursing educators are supposed to use the learning skills to ensure the enhancement of human flouring for their colleagues, fellow students, communities and most importantly their patients.
2. Sound Nursing Judgment - Here nursing educator and learners should demonstrate a sound nursing judgement in actions or decisions which are related to the quality of education and care for patients (Gould, 2019).
3. Professional Identity – here the growth in the nursing profession is very integral in regard to the development of the nurse educator as being a leader that follows and values the personal and professional advancement (Gould, 2019).
4. Spirit of Inquiry-  it indicates that  the nursing profession is very vital  in regard to the reforms on health care systems, and will functions with the spirit of inquiry to the continued reforms as a way of informing practice and education (Gould, 2019).

Explanation

1. Human Flourishing

When it comes to the human flourishing competency, it looks at the effort to achieve the part of self-fulfilment and self-actualization in the nursing practice within the context of the broader community of individuals. It looks at the right of each member in the community to pursue their personal efforts. It will assess traits like diversity, dignity, uniqueness, happiness and the holistic wellbeing of the individual in respect to a larger family, population of community (Gould, 2019). As one achieves a human flourishing trait, it means that one is able to become and live the life long journey that is full of achievement, hope, losses, regrets, suffering, illness and coping.  The nurse will be educated to learn how to help individuals in reclaiming or coming up with a new pathways to their human flourishing. The concepts of nursing foundation will look at human dignity, health and illness, vulnerability, compassion, ethnic and cultural diversity of each individual (Alvarado, Alfaro, Rivas, & Rodriguez, 2016).  It is also important to understand the issue of flourishing as to mean having vigour, thriving, growing vigorously and being successful.

1. Nursing Judgement

The competency of nursing judgement on the other hand looms at three processes in nursing education that includes; clinical judgement, critical thinking and integration through best practice exchange.  This means that the nurse is supposed to employ the required processes as they make decisions regarding their clinical care, application of research and development and the broader dissemination of research findings among other insights to the management and community and allocation of resources.   In addition, the utilization of required professional judgement in education for nurses will entail the process of acquiring and disseminating information, critically thinking about it, evidence evaluation application or required knowledge, the use of problem solving skills, using and reflecting on the clinical judgement as a way of selecting the best course of action in response to educational strategies and learning competencies. 

In the nursing professional judgement this is about the ability for the student to apply the highest order of their cognitive skills (evaluation, conceptualization and analysis) and being in a position that it become deliberate to apply critical thinking (where the nurse is required to be open minded by very wise when it comes to decision making) in the end leading to action that is appropriate and logical.  The development of nursing public policy, advocacy skills and evidence based practice will also assist the nursin