Graduate Nursing Programs

The curriculum is anchored in a hybrid case-based learning pedagogy known by its acronym, PEARLS (Patient-centered Explorations in Active Reasoning, Learning, and Synthesis). PEARLS is the primary teaching/learning practice which guides other learning activities and implements a flipped-classroom approach. It is the Graduate Nursing Program’s structural framework for case-based learning. The goal of PEARLS is for students to synthesize biomedical science in the context of clinical cases through higher order learning conversations in peer groups. Small group environments are critical to the delivery of case based learning sessions. In each group, the students determine learning objectives for a case, research material to discuss the objectives, and then participate in collating their collective knowledge into responses that meet the science and clinical learning objectives of the cases. The faculty facilitator serves as a resource for the student-led case session process and ensures that the learning objectives are covered in adequate detail. Following the completion of each week’s PEARLS cases, the students receive the cases’ expected learning objectives. This offers yet another opportunity for self-directed integration of curricular material. Through this process, students actively become adept in their thinking about scientific mechanisms and clinical signs and symptoms. This pedagogy is learner-centric and incorporates scientific knowledge, clinical reasoning, health promotion and prevention, social determinants of health and population health perspectives across the lifespan.