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ABSTRACT
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching recently completed a series of comparative studies that examined components and best practices in professional education and practice across five professions (clergy, law, medicine, nursing, and engineering). Across these disciplines, three apprenticeships were identified as necessary components of education for professional practice: an intellectual or cognitive apprenticeship, a skill-based apprenticeship related to clinical judgment and practice, and an apprenticeship to the ethical comportment or behavior of the profession. Although nursing education has a strong theory and clinical practice base historically, the comparative study of nursing education by the Carnegie Foundation found limited integration of the apprenticeships. Using an exemplar, this article discusses intentional design of learning objectives and activities to integrate learning across the three apprenticeships with an emphasis on key elements for professional practice in nursing.
An emphasis on integrative learning in professional education recently has been advanced by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, an independent policy and research center committed to the improvement of teaching and learning. Recent comparative studies by the Carnegie Foundation's Preparation for the Professions Program (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2007a) explicated the necessary elements for preparation for professional practice in the fields of nursing, medicine, law, engineering, and clergy. Three necessary areas for development, called apprenticeships to the profession, were identified as critical to professional practice. These three apprenticeships are (Benner & Sutphen, 2007; Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2007b):
* Cognitive or intellectual apprenticeship. This apprenticeship includes conceptual or intellectual training to learn the academic knowledge base of nursing and the capacity to think like a nurse. In nursing education, the cognitive or intellectual apprenticeship traditionally is emphasized in the classroom setting.
* Skill-based apprenticeship of practice. This apprenticeship includes the development of skilled know-how and clinical judgment. In nursing education, the skill-based apprenticeship of practice traditionally is emphasized in the laboratory or clinical settings, with a focus on acquiring competency in skills and tasks.
* Apprenticeship to the ethical standards, ethical comportment or behavior, social roles, and responsibilities of the profession. This apprenticeship also is referred to as civic professionalism, or the responsibility of the profession to the community it serves and traditionally is part of the ethics course...