NUR 670 Module 5 Checkpoint: How Does Curriculum Development Evolve Over Time? Example

Reviewed by Ingrid Vasterling, MSN, RN Arizona State University Updated October 2026

This NUR 670 Module 5 sample responds to the checkpoint "How Does Curriculum Development Evolve Over Time?" in Curriculum Design for Nursing and Health Professions Education, an online course in ASU's MS in Nursing. In ASU NUR 670 this module treats curriculum development as iterative and asks what role individual educators play in it. The composite faculty member answers with her program's history: three revisions in ten years, a move to concept-based courses, a rework of exams and clinical paperwork when the licensure exam changed, and an AI policy still in draft. She names the drift that set in between revisions and describes how a small faculty working group gave educators real agency, then answers a classmate on change fatigue.

CourseNUR 670 Curriculum Design for Nursing and Health Professions Education
ModuleModule 5
Paper typeAnalytical discussion checkpoint post and peer post
LengthAbout 412 words
FormatDiscussion post with APA 7 citations
SchoolArizona State University
ProgramMS in Nursing
UpdatedOctober 2026

Free sample paper for NUR 670 Module 5

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Module 5 Checkpoint: Three Revisions in Ten Years and What Each One Taught Our Faculty

Never Finished: Three Revisions, One Drift and the Faculty Agency Behind an Iterative Curriculum

Initial Post

Our faculty handbook describes curriculum review as a five-year cycle. Looking at the last ten years, I would describe it differently: development happens in bursts set off by outside events, with quiet drift in between.

Revision 1 (about ten years ago): concept-based courses. The program replaced body-systems courses with concept courses after faculty agreed that students were memorizing more and understanding less. The work took two years and followed a pattern that resembles the six-step approach in medical education: identify the problem, assess learners' needs, set goals and objectives, choose strategies, implement and evaluate (Thomas et al., 2022). The steps are presented as a cycle, and our evaluation step fed the next revision.

Drift. Between revisions, the curriculum on paper and the curriculum in classrooms moved apart. Faculty who joined later taught exemplars they knew best, some concepts gained extra lectures and others shrank. No one decided this; it accumulated. Iwasiw et al. (2020) treat ongoing evaluation as part of curriculum development itself, and our gap between formal reviews is the reason why.

Revision 2 (2022-2023): the clinical judgment exam. When the licensure exam shifted to measure clinical judgment, we rewrote exam items into case-based formats, replaced care plan templates with a cue-recognition worksheet and trained adjunct faculty on the new model, drawing on published guidance for building it into an existing framework (Dickison et al., 2019). This revision was faster because the drift had already been mapped in the previous year's review.

Revision 3 (now): AI. A draft policy on generative AI in written assignments is moving through committee. It is the first revision driven partly by students, who asked for clear rules.

Educator agency. What made the second revision work was not the handbook cycle but a working group of four faculty, one from each semester, who met every two weeks and could propose changes directly to the committee. Agency, in my experience, means having a defined place to act, not only permission. I plan to ask for a standing version of that group so drift is caught yearly rather than every five years.

What this page is doingTelling a curriculum's history as a cycle with drift between revisions answers the question of how development evolves, and the working group gives a concrete example of educator agency.
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Peer Post (Reply to Tomas on Change Fatigue)

Tomas, your faculty's change fatigue sounds real. One thing that helped us was separating small annual adjustments from major revisions, so not every change required a full committee process. Does your program have a way to make minor changes without starting over?

What this page is doingThe reply recognizes a classmate's concern and offers a practical structure from the writer's program, extending the discussion of iterative development.
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References

Dickison, P., Haerling, K. A., & Lasater, K. (2019). Integrating the National Council of State Boards of Nursing Clinical Judgment Model into nursing educational frameworks. Journal of Nursing Education, 58(2), 72-78. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20190122-03

Iwasiw, C. L., Andrusyszyn, M.-A., & Goldenberg, D. (2020). Curriculum development in nursing education (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Thomas, P. A., Kern, D. E., Hughes, M. T., Tackett, S. A., & Chen, B. Y. (Eds.). (2022). Curriculum development for medical education: A six-step approach (4th ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press.

NUR 670 Module 5 instructions, in plain terms

Module 5, Curriculum Development, presents curriculum work as iterative and gives attention to educator agency, the part individual faculty play in shaping change. The checkpoint asks how curriculum development evolves over time, posted first on your own and then answered from a classmate's thread two days later. History is the natural evidence here. Use the revisions of a program you know, or a composite one, and show what set each revision off, how the work proceeded and what happened between revisions. Connect the story to a development model from the readings, and say where educators had real influence and where they did not. Closing on a step you intend to take demonstrates agency instead of merely describing it.

How this NUR 670 Module 5 example is built

The post opens by contrasting the handbook's five-year cycle with what actually happened: bursts of change with drift between them. Revision 1 is described with the six-step model so the cycle is visible. A short paragraph explains drift and why ongoing evaluation belongs inside development. Revision 2 shows how mapping the drift made the response to the licensure exam faster, and Revision 3 notes a student-driven AI policy. The agency paragraph credits a small working group with real authority and ends with a proposal for a standing group. A peer post offers a way to separate minor adjustments from major revisions. Two sources support the post: the nursing curriculum text and the six-step model from medical education.

Reading the NUR 670 Module 5 grading rubric

Twelve points ride on each checkpoint, judged in Canvas for applying module concepts, drawing on readings and sources and engaging peers. The analytical strength of this post comes from showing evolution with evidence, a sequence of revisions with causes, rather than stating that curriculum is iterative. Linking the story to a recognized model shows command of the readings. Educator agency is half of the module's topic, so posts that address it specifically, with an example of how faculty influenced change, answer the full question. Honest attention to drift or failure adds depth. A peer post that offers a usable idea extends the discussion, and both posts must meet their deadlines.

NUR 670 Module 5 help from the desk

A frequent gap is a post that says curriculum should be reviewed regularly and stops there. Show it changing over time with dates or terms, even approximate ones. Another is leaving out agency; say what educators actually did. Avoid presenting a model as if your program followed it step by step if it did not; the difference is part of the analysis. If you tell the desk which curriculum changes you have lived through, a post can be drafted from that history. Keep the timeline brief so the analysis has room. The peer post should respond to a classmate's experience with a practical structure or a question, since the course values replies that build on each other.

Write yours, or have the desk draft it

This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Arizona State University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.

More NUR 670 and MS in Nursing sample papers

NUR 670 Module 5 questions, answered

Where can I find a free NUR 670 Module 5 sample paper?

The full NUR 670 Module 5 checkpoint sample on how curriculum development evolves, using a ten-year history of three revisions, plus a reply on change fatigue, appears on this page.

What is iterative curriculum development?

Treating curriculum as a cycle of assessing, designing, implementing and evaluating, where each evaluation feeds the next revision.

What is curriculum drift?

The gradual difference that grows between the written curriculum and what is taught, as faculty change and topics expand or shrink.

What is educator agency in curriculum work?

The capacity of individual faculty to influence curriculum decisions, usually through defined roles such as committees or working groups.

What is Kern's six-step approach?

A curriculum model from medical education: problem identification, needs assessment, goals and objectives, strategies, implementation and evaluation.