Assignment: PRAC 6665 SYLLABUS

Student Support and Calendar Information

So you have all key information available to you off-line, it is highly recommended that you print the following items for your reference:

This Syllabus, including the Course Schedule that is linked on this page as a PDF
Course Calendar
Support, Guidelines, and Policies
Credit Hours

2 credits in 11 weeks
Walden University assigns credit hours based on the number and type of assignments that enable students to achieve the course learning objectives. In general, each semester credit equals about 42 hours of total student work and each quarter credit equals about 28 hours of total student work. This time requirement represents an approximate average for undergraduate work and the minimum expectations for graduate work. The number and kind of activities estimated to fulfill time requirements will vary by degree level and student learning style, and by student familiarity with the delivery method and course content. Assignment: PRAC 6665 SYLLABUS

Course Description

This is the third of four practicum courses in the advanced practice psychiatric-mental health curriculum. Students will apply their knowledge of psychopathology, psychopharmacology, and psychiatric assessment to the diagnosis, treatment, and management of mental health disorders in children, adolescents, adults, and older adults. The focus of this course is on advanced nursing practice in mental health settings. Note: Students with catalog years before Spring 2018 must complete a minimum of 144 practicum hours; those with catalog years beginning Spring 2018 must complete a minimum of 160 practicum hours. A minimum of 80 patient encounters (40 children/adolescents and 40 adults/older adults) are required.

Course Prerequisites

NURS 6630: Psychopharmacological Approaches to Treatment of Psychopathology
NRNP 6635: Psychopathology and Diagnostic Reasoning
PRAC 6635: Psychopathology and Diagnostic Reasoning Practicum
NRNP 6645: Psychotherapy With Multiple Modalities
PRAC 6645: Psychotherapy With Multiple Modalities Practicum
*NRNP 6665: PMHNP Care Across the Lifespan I
*This course is ideally taken concurrently, as a corequisite, but may also be taken as a prerequisite if needed.

Course Learning Outcomes

By the conclusion of this course, you should be able to:

Assess advanced practice psychiatric-mental health nursing skills for strengths and opportunities
Develop professional plans in advanced nursing practice for the practicum experience
Apply advanced practice nursing assessment, diagnosis, and treatment skills in mental health settings
Analyze cases involving advanced care of patients across the lifespan in mental health settings
Formulate differential diagnoses for patients across the lifespan in mental health settings
Formulate appropriate treatment plans that include psychopharmacology and psychotherapeutic techniques
Collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams as a social change agent to improve clinical practice in mental health settings
College of Nursing Alignment of Learner Outcomes

Click on the following link to access the College of Nursing Alignment of Learner Outcomes:

Document: PRAC 6665 CON Alignment of Learning Outcomes (PDF)

Course Materials

Please visit the University bookstore via your Walden student portal to ensure you are obtaining the correct version of any course texts and/or materials noted in the following section. When you receive your materials, make sure that all required items are included.

Course Text

You should already have these texts from earlier coursework:

Carlat, D. J. (2017). The psychiatric interview (4th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.

Stern, T. A., Fava, M., Wilens, T. E., & Rosenbaum, J. F. (2016). Massachusetts General Hospital psychopharmacology and neurotherapeutics. Elsevier.
Consult all other textbooks from prerequisite prior coursework as needed.

Other readings (journal articles, websites, book excerpts, etc.) are assigned throughout the course and may be found within each Module.

Media

Assigned course media elements may be found in one or more modules of the course and are available via a streaming media player or a hyperlink to the individual item.

Primary and Secondary Sources

Review the following information prior to selecting resources for assignments.

Primary: A primary source is an original document that is the first account of what happened. A research report is primary, and you can tell because it includes materials and methods demonstrating how the research was done. Some creative work is also primary, such as poetry, novels, and interviews of people who experienced something firsthand. In nursing, which is an evidence-based discipline, we strive to use primary research that is published in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals.

Scholarly, peer-reviewed journal: Scholarly journals publish papers by professional authors and experts in the field using a peer-review process to review the work and assure quality before publishing. The focus of a scholarly journal is to provide accurate information for scholars and other researchers. The focus is on content rather than advertising, a direct contrast to popular media. Scholarly journals publish both primary and secondary papers, the former usually noted as original research and the latter as reviews and commentaries. Letters to the editor may also be published but should be recognized as opinion pieces.

Note: When selecting articles for course assignments, you are advised (unless you are referencing seminal information) to focus on work published within the past 5 years.

Secondary: A secondary source is one step removed from the original source. This work interprets and often compiles other work, and it includes review articles, textbooks, fact sheets, and commentaries about a topic. It also includes news reports of original research. Secondary work is more prone to error and bias than primary work because it is being filtered through an additional person or persons. Review papers can be useful to glean information about a topic and to find other sources from the reference list, but it is the original, primary research that should be relied on most heavily in demonstrating scholarship, depth, and validation of factual information.

Course Assignments

Assignments: The Assignments provide you with the opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge gained through the Learning Resources and at your practicum site. See specific weeks for detailed descriptions of the Assignments. In grading some of the required Assignments, your Instructor will be using rubrics located in the Course Information area.

Note: The course Assignments will require that you completely and accurately demonstrate critical thinking via assimilation and synthesis of ideas when using credible outside and course-specific resources (i.e., video, required readings, textbook), when comparing different points of view, highlighting similarities, differences, and connections, and/or when lending support to your Assignment responses.

This Practicum course contains several different types of Assignments:

Self-Assessment and Journal

A student self-assessment and a reflective journal occur at the beginning and end of the course as a means to consider strengths, opportunities for improvement, guiding goals, and growth.

Clinical Hour and Patient Logs

Students are required to keep a log of the time spent related to their practicum experience and enter every patient they see each day. Students can access their logs from the Welcome Page in their Meditrek account. Students will track time individually for each patient they work with. Students are required to continuously input their hours throughout the term. Logs are reviewed and evaluated by Instructors each week to track student progress. Failure to keep clinical hour and patient logs current may hinder success in the class. Please print and keep your completed patient log at the end of your clinical experiences for future use as a component of your portfolio.

Focused SOAP Notes and Patient Case Presentations

In the Focused SOAP Note and Patient Case Presentation Assignments, students complete documentation on a patient from their practicum. They record themselves presenting an analysis of the case. Videos should be created in Kaltura, support for which may be found in the Blackboard classroom.

Grading Criteria and Total Components of a Grade

Course grades will be based on participation (postings) and completion of assignments listed below.

Letter grades will be assigned as follows:

90%–100% = A
80%–89% = B
70%–79% = C
< 70% = F

Note: Please see below the policy on Incomplete (I) grades.

Assignment
Total Points
Percentage
(Weighted)
Practicum Site Information Form
Self-Assessment
Practicum Experience Plan
Journal
310
10%
Weeks 1–10 Clinical Hour and Patient Logs (x 10)
100
10%
Focused SOAP Notes and Patient Case Presentations (x 3)
300
30%
Midterm Evaluation
Final Clinical Evaluation
200
50%
Total
910
100%
Practicum Site Information Form and Clinical Hour and Patient Logs are 10 points each. All other assessments are 100 points each.

Incomplete Grade Policy

Per university policy, Incomplete grades can be granted only to students who have already met the minimum criteria for active weekly participation in a course (including weekly postings in online courses) and have completed at least 80% of other coursework. Incompletes can be awarded when, because of extenuating circumstances, a student has not met additional course requirements, including but not limited to written assignments, group projects, and research papers, as applicable. All Incomplete grades are awarded at the discretion of the Course Faculty.

Students who are eligible for an Incomplete must contact the Course Faculty to request the grade as soon as possible. Students who do not meet the criteria listed above will not be allowed to earn an Incomplete. If the Incomplete is approved, the Faculty Member will work with the student to outline the due date(s) for remaining work. Under no circumstances will the new due dates extend beyond 50 days from the last day of the term. Faculty will then have 10 days to assess the work and post the permanent grade before the university-allotted Incomplete time limit of 60 days expires. All Incomplete grades not resolved within the time allotted will convert to permanent grades of F.

Instructor Feedback Schedule

The Instructor will log in to the course during the week to monitor the Discussion area in those weeks when a Discussion is assigned. Feedback will be provided via the My Grades area, the Discussion area, and/or the Announcements page.

You can expect your assignment grades to be posted within 10 calendar days of a due date. Instructor feedback and explanation is provided whenever full credit is not achieved. Depending on the nature of the feedback, Instructor responses may be posted to the Discussion area or included in the My Grades area. The goal of your Instructor is to act as a learning facilitator rather than a lecturer. Please feel free to ask your Instructor if you would like some personal feedback on a particular assignment posting or any time you have any questions regarding your assignments or your grade.

Course Procedures

You are encouraged to post course-related questions to the Contact the Instructor area as they may be of interest to all; however, if your question is urgent, it is often best to email the Instructor. If your emailed question is thought to be of benefit to all, it may be responded to by the Instructor via email to all or posted as an announcement.
Instructor feedback on content and writing issues that is thought to be of benefit to the entire class may be posted to the Contact the Instructor area; however, most personal critique will be done privately in the Grade Center. Be sure to check the Grade Center for comments every week even if you received full credit.
Please feel free to use the Class Café to initiate and participate in conversations not directly related to the course. This is an excellent opportunity to get to know other students better. The Instructor will browse the Class Café occasionally but generally will not respond to conversations posted there unless students have specific questions for him or her.
Check the email account you use for official Walden University business on a regular basis. The expectation is that you are checking this email account daily during the week. If you experience difficulty sending or receiving Walden email, please contact the Student Support Team right away. Contact information for the Student Support Team is located in the Student Support area.
Review all materials in the Course Information area, as well as the materials contained under each of the weekly buttons.
Preferred Methods for Delivering Assignments

Clinical Hour and Patient Logs, as well as the Midterm and Final Clinical Evaluations, are completed in Meditrek. The link to Meditrek is provided in the classroom.
Assignments are submitted to the SafeAssign link and named according to the week in which the Assignment is submitted. Directions for naming each Application Assignment are included in each week’s Assignment area. Please be sure that all written Application Assignments are saved and submitted as a “.doc” file.
All email correspondence must contain in the subject line “PRAC 6665-XX-NAME” (XX is the section number) followed by a brief description of the subject. This subject line convention ensures that your email will be easily identified and responded to in a timely manner. It is required that the email contain a signature that matches the official name used in the course. Assignment: PRAC 6665 SYLLABUS
Late Assignment Policy

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Students are expected to submit assignments by the due dates noted in the course. In extenuating circumstances, such as illness, the student must contact the Instructor as soon as possible to discuss the situation. In those circumstances, Faculty will determine the appropriate course of action for the student. Depending on the situation, these actions may include recommendations to drop the course (if within the university drop/withdrawal period), acceptance of some or all of the overdue assignments with or without penalties, or failure to accept assignments.

Assignments submitted late without prior agreement of the Instructor, outside of an emergency absence, or in violation of agreements for late submission, will receive a grade reduction for the assignment amounting up to 20%. After 5 days, the assignment will not be graded. Students should be aware that late assignments may not receive the same level of written feedback as do assignments submitted on time.

Keeping Your Coursework

You will have access to the course and your coursework from the course start date until 60 days after the course ends. After this time, you will no longer be able to access the course or related materials. For this reason, we strongly recommend that you retain copies of your completed assignments and any documents you wish to keep. The university is not responsible for lost or missing coursework.

Course Evaluation

At or near the end of the course, you will receive an email inviting you to submit an online evaluation of the course and instruction. All submitted course evaluations are confidential, and only aggregate data and comments will be shared with the Instructor and Program Director. Your feedback is vitally important to Walden University in its efforts to continuously improve programs.

Classroom Participation

In accordance with U.S. Department of Education guidance regarding class participation, Walden University requires that all students submit at least one of their required Week 1 assignments (which includes posting to the Discussion Board) within each course(s) during the first 7 calendar days of class. For courses with two-week units, posting to the Discussion Board by Day 7 meets this requirement. The first calendar day of class is the official start date of the course as posted on your myWalden academic page.

Assignments submitted prior to the official start date will not count toward your participation.

Financial Aid cannot be released without class participation as defined above.

Students who are taking their first class with Walden and do not submit at least one of their required Week 1 assignments (or at least one Discussion post) by the end of the 7th day will be administratively withdrawn from the university.

Students who have already taken and successfully completed at least one or more class(es) with Walden, and who do not participate within the first 7 days, will be dropped from that class.

If you have any questions about your assignments, or you are unable to complete your assignments, please contact your Faculty Member. Assignment: PRAC 6665 SYLLABUS

Checklist

The module course checklist below outlines the assignments due for the course.

For full assignment details and directions, refer to each module of the course. All assignments are due by 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time (MT) on the day assigned (which is 1:59 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) the next day). The time stamp in the classroom will reflect Eastern Time (ET), regardless of your time zone. As long as your submission time stamp is no later than 1:59 a.m. Eastern Time (ET), you have submitted on time.

To View the Calendar

To view the Course Calendar:

Course Calendar

To View a Printable Course Schedule

For full assignment details and directions, refer to each Module of the course.

Click on the PRAC 6665 Course Schedule (PDF) link to access the Course Schedule.

Document: PRAC 6665 Course Schedule (PDF)

Assignment: PRAC 6665 SYLLABUS

Checklist

Week
Assignment
Title
Week 1
Competencies of Advanced Nursing Practice