What do marshmallows, spaghetti, and flip charts have in common? These are the ingredients for an exciting professional development day. Let us explain. In 2022, four nursing professional development (NPD) specialists from Aurora Healthcare were tasked with creating a one-day professional development program for a target audience of NPD practitioners, The primary goal of this program was to increase comfort and understanding of three standards of NPD practice. The secondary goals were to foster reengagement, reconnection, and rebuilding of the department, ultimately providing the perfect opportunity for professional development.

In early 2022, the Association for Nursing Professional Development (ANPD) updated the NPD Scope & Standards of Practice for the specialty (Harper & Maloney, 2022). To consider the updated NPD Scope & Standards, our organization conducted a needs assessment that included 20 NPD practitioner participants with job responsibilities that were both system- and site-level in the state of Wisconsin to rank each standard by their level of comfort. After analysis of the needs assessment results and consideration of the updates in the NPD Scope & Standards, the top three standards and their associated competencies identified as a learning need were: Standard 12: Leadership, Standard 14: Scholarly Inquiry, and Standard 16: Professional Practice Evaluation.

Designing and Implementing the Professional Development Day

Designing and implementing a professional development day for a team of high-achieving NPDs was no small feat. Our planning workgroup compared the differences between the Harper et al. (2016) third edition and Harper et al. (2022) fourth edition of the NPD Scope & Standards of Practice for the three identified standards.  

To increase comfort and understanding of the standards, the presenters used adult learning principles, small group discussions, team-building activities, and gamification. This event provided an opportunity for the NPD practitioners to brainstorm, demonstrate, and apply the three standards to their daily practice while building and strengthening their professional relationships with their colleagues. Utilizing marshmallows, spaghetti, and flip charts, participants enjoyed hands-on activities throughout the day of the event, which enabled them to explore and test out the standards and associated competencies. ­

Standard 12: Leadership

Teams of four to five NPDs were charged with building a free-standing tower using only the supplied items: marshmallows and dry spaghetti noodles. This was used to apply their use of leadership and innovative practices in a creative way.  In the middle of the activity, several challenges were introduced: supply chain disruption, workforce reallocation, and teammate redeployment. At the end of the activity, one team was highlighted for successfully building a tower and shared their strategies for success. During the debrief, key competencies of the leadership standard were reviewed, and the NPD practitioners rated themselves and their groups on change management, communication, succession planning, and mentoring, to name a few.

Standard 14: Scholarly Inquiry

Utilizing the NPD practice model, participants were tasked with aligning the NPD responsibilities with Scholarly Inquiry examples. This helped the participants better understand scholarship, evidence, and research findings. A quiz competition utilizing an online platform tested their knowledge and allowed them to apply what they learned about scholarly inquiry. The gamification style of learning and competition sparked interest and created continued discussion and plans for integrating Standard 14.

Standard 16: Professional Practice Evaluation

Participants utilized flip charts and small group discussions to explore the professional practice evaluation standard. Each group was given a competency and worked together to describe how they demonstrated it or could apply it to their NPD practice while writing responses on a flip chart. The various groups then presented to the larger team to share what they discussed and learned. At the end of the day, there was time for both small group and large group discussion of the practice standards and how they are incorporated into and applied to daily practice.

A Successful Event

To assess how effectively the program closed the knowledge and comfort gap of the updated practice standards, participants were asked to complete an evaluation at the end of the day. The evaluations showed an overall average increase in participant understanding of the three standards identified as having the least comfort in the needs assessment. When asked if the environment and presentation style fostered learning, on a scale of one to five, the average rating was 5.0, the highest rank. When asked about the three standards identified by the needs assessment on a scale of one to five, one being the lowest level of understanding and five being the highest level of understanding, Standard 12: Leadership increased from an average rating of 2.77 to 4.38; Standard 14: Scholarly Inquiry increased from an average rating of 2.62 to 4.15; and Standard 16: Professional Practice Evaluation increased from an average rating of 2.77 to 4.08. The participants indicated that they enjoyed reviewing the professional practice standards as a team and would like more team-building, networking, and professional development days in the future.

Our NPD department’s professional development event focused on closing the knowledge gap on the three NPD standards. After analyzing the results, we shared the program’s success with the department’s leadership team and at a regional research conference. More importantly, the event brought everyone together in person to reestablish connections and build relationships. The creativity in bringing the standards to life will allow the NPD practitioner to continue to develop in their practice. Even though our team used marshmallows, spaghetti, and flipcharts, these are not the only tools NPDs can use to provide engagement for a professional development day—what will you choose at your next event?

References

Harper, M. G., & Maloney, P. (Eds.). (2016). Nursing professional development: Scope and standards of practice (3rd ed.). Association for Nursing Professional Development.

Harper, M. G., & Maloney, P. (Eds.). (2022). Nursing professional development: Scope and standards of practice (4^th ed.). Association for Nursing Professional Development.