This paper presents a structured community health nursing course designed for BSN students. It outlines eight weekly module topics—ranging from the definition of community health nursing to cultural competence—and pairs each with evidence-based active learning strategies such as concept maps, team-based learning, case studies, and peer review. The paper further analyzes three featured strategies in depth, demonstrates how case study methodology fosters clinical reasoning, and proposes approaches for promoting interprofessional collaboration across face-to-face, online, and clinical learning environments. It concludes by examining how students' cultural, societal, and life experiences shape learning, and how cognitive learning theory informs instructional design choices in nursing education.
BSN nurses must be prepared to practice and function effectively in a wide range of settings. Community health is considered an integral part of the public health sector. For this reason, it remains central to efforts not only to improve the health and wellbeing of the broader population, but also to prevent and contain infectious diseases. This course will equip learners with the skills and knowledge required to function effectively in community health settings.
The following table outlines the weekly course module topics, their key concepts, the evidence-based active learning strategies employed, and supporting scholarly citations.
Week 1: Definition and Nature of Community Health Nursing
Key Concept: Community health as a specialty concerned with the promotion of mental and physical health and wellbeing among persons within a defined geographic region.
Active Learning Strategy — Pause Procedure: At various points during the lecture, learners will be asked to review their notes and then seek clarification on various aspects of the material after discussing the lecture content in pairs.
Citation: Bachhel and Thaman (2014) observe that the pause procedure is an instrumental active learning approach for promoting the retention of key concepts.
Week 2: Objectives of Community Health Nursing
Key Concept: The primary and secondary goals of community health nursing.
Active Learning Strategy — Inquiry-Based Learning: Learners will be actively motivated to share ideas about the purpose community health nursing serves. They will also be asked to raise relevant queries about its goals and objectives.
Citation: According to Attard, Berger, and Mackenzie (2021), this active learning strategy is effective in fostering problem-solving and critical thinking, which the authors identify as crucial in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related subjects.
Week 3: Stakeholders in Community Health
Key Concept: Healthcare practitioners, local government, patients, social health groups, charities, and others as stakeholders in community health.
Active Learning Strategy — Concept Maps: The diverse roles that stakeholders play in community health, as well as possible collaborative engagements between various stakeholders, will be demonstrated using a concept map.
Citation: As Carr-Lopez, Galal, Vyas, Patel, and Gnesa (2014) state, "concept maps help to facilitate meaningful learning" (p. 170).
Week 4: The Role BSN Nurses Play in the Promotion of Community Health
Key Concept: BSN nurses as key players in the promotion of community health and wellbeing.
Active Learning Strategy — Team-Based Learning: Learners will actively collaborate with each other to complete tasks designed to promote their understanding of the role of BSN nurses in the promotion of community health.
Citation: Faezi, Moradi, Amin, Akhlaghi, and Keshmiri (2018) indicate that this method has been associated with increased student engagement.
Week 5: Community-Based Nursing Interventions
Key Concept: Assessment, diagnosis, implementation; care coordination; behavior and lifestyle change; self-care support; and patient education.
Active Learning Strategy — Case Study: Students will be divided into groups and asked to work through cases depicting hypothetical scenarios requiring community-based nursing interventions.
Citation: Bonney (2015) indicates that the case study teaching method has been shown to be very effective as a content delivery approach, especially in courses rooted in science.
Week 6: Addressing Challenges Encountered in Community Nursing
Key Concept: Challenges including diverse ethical dilemmas, limited management support, personal safety, professional isolation, career development, workplace violence, overtime, and low staffing levels.
Active Learning Strategies — Brainstorming and Case Study: For brainstorming, learners will be asked to generate ideas about the most viable ways of addressing the challenges highlighted, with the instructor offering additional insights. For the case study component, learners will be presented with a case depicting a real-life scenario for discussion, in which an ethical dilemma is described and learners are asked to present proposed solutions.
Citations: Goswami, Jain, and Koner (2017) identify brainstorming as a highly effective group creativity method for formulating solutions to hypothetical or real-life challenges. Bonney (2015) argues that the case study strategy can be instrumental in developing learners' ability to apply theoretical concepts in practical situations.
Week 7: The Relevance of Cultural Competence in Community Health Nursing
Key Concept: Understanding the relevance, impact, and influence of cultural and social factors on the delivery of care.
Active Learning Strategy — Role Playing: Students will be called upon to act out imagined scenarios in which they simulate interactions between nurses and persons from diverse racial, religious, and sexual orientation backgrounds.
Citation: This is a highly effective learning strategy because it promotes dynamic interactions among learners, thereby enhancing retention of learned material (Stevens, 2014).
Week 8: Review of Key Concepts
Key Concept: Assessment of student comprehension of key course concepts relating to the nature of community health nursing and the role of BSN nurses in the promotion of community health.
Active Learning Strategy — Peer-Based Strategy: Learners will be assigned tasks to gauge their comprehension of key concepts and will then evaluate each other's performance.
Citation: Ghesemi, Moonaghi, and Heydari (2020) observe that this is an effective approach for ensuring that learners better understand the relevant content and gather new insights in light of the feedback they receive from their peers.
The course outline highlights a number of distinct strategies. Three of particular note are concept maps, team-based learning, and case studies. When it comes to concept maps, this learning strategy involves the diagrammatic representation of connected ideas (O'Neil, 2014). The author points out that it is especially useful for visual learners; however, as he further observes, it can be relevant to virtually any learner because it helps in discerning the bigger picture.
Next is team-based learning, in which the most crucial element is group collaboration. O'Neil (2014) indicates that learners are held accountable not only to themselves, but also to their peers. In the author's words, this approach aids in the development of "skills such as complex problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and time management" (p. 135).
Finally, the case study learning approach can be described in basic terms as a problem-based learning approach. It is especially instrumental in developing learners' critical analytical abilities. According to Whitton (2015), the case study learning strategy is particularly useful for developing the ability of learners to apply theoretical concepts in practical scenarios and situations.
"Case study use for ethical dilemma and clinical reasoning"
"Collaboration strategies across face-to-face, online, clinical settings"
"How student background shapes nursing course engagement"
"Cognitive theory as framework for active learning choices"
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