NUR 508 Module 6 Professional Development Plan example

Reviewed by Delia Ravenscroft, MSN, RN Role Development and Transformation of the MSN Professional Nurse Southern New Hampshire University Full sample paper Free custom sample in 24 to 48h

This complete NUR 508 Module 6 paper writes a two-year professional development plan that could be audited. A composite emergency nurse moving into a hospital nursing professional development specialist role sets five goals drawn from the specialty's standards and certification requirements, and gives each one a completion date, a cost in money and time, who pays, and the evidence that will prove it was met. The hospital is invented; the standards and goal-setting source are real.

What this page holds

The complete NUR 508 Module 6 development plan below gives five goals, each with a date, cost, funding source and verifiable proof, plus a plan table, sequencing logic, risks and a review schedule, with references. Searches like "nur 508 module 6 assignment", "nur508 module 6 professional development plan" and "nur 508 module 6 example" land here.

The NUR 508 Module 6 example, in full

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Dated, Costed and Provable: A Two-Year Development Plan for a New Nursing Professional Development Specialist

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

NUR 508: Role Development and Transformation of the MSN Professional Nurse

Module Six Professional Development Plan

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The organization, setting and figures below are a composite written as a model document. No real employer, client, colleague or patient is described.

What this page is doingThe main title lists the three tests each goal must pass, and the subtitle names the time span, the stage and the role. A reader knows the plan can be checked against its own promises.
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Dated, Costed and Provable: A Two-Year Development Plan for a New Nursing Professional Development Specialist

The Role and the Source of the Goals

Mr. Delgado is a composite emergency nurse with nine years of experience who has just been hired as a nursing professional development specialist at a composite 350-bed hospital, responsible for emergency and critical care orientation and continuing education. He will finish his MSN in eight months. His goals come from two sources: the specialty's scope and standards, which describe the practitioner's responsibilities for onboarding, competency management, education design, evaluation and scholarship (Harper & Maloney, 2022), and a supervisor's review of his first 90 days, which identified education design and program evaluation as his weakest areas.

The Rule for Every Goal

Goal-setting guidance has long recommended that goals be specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-bound (Doran, 1981). This plan adds a sharper test. Every goal must name a completion date, a cost in money and hours, who pays, and a piece of evidence a supervisor could hold in her hand. A goal that cannot meet all four is rewritten or dropped.

What this page is doingThe rule adapts a well-known goal framework into a stricter test suited to the prompt. The highlighted sentence tells the reader exactly how to judge the plan.
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The Plan

The table below sets out the five goals.

Table 1

Two-Year Development Plan

GoalDateCost and fundingProof
1. Complete MSN with a capstone evaluating the emergency orientation programMay of year oneRemaining tuition, partly covered by employer tuition assistance; about 10 hours a weekTranscript; capstone report accepted by faculty and shared with the director
2. Redesign emergency nurse orientation using the needs assessment and objectives from the capstoneSeptember of year oneAbout 80 work hours; no direct costNew orientation curriculum approved by the education council
3. Evaluate the redesigned orientation at reaction, learning and behavior levelsMarch of year twoAbout 40 work hours; survey software already licensedWritten evaluation report with first-year retention and competency data
4. Earn national board certification in nursing professional developmentJune of year twoExam fee and review course, paid by the hospital's certification benefit; about 60 study hoursCertificate and credential verification
5. Present the orientation evaluation at a regional or national professional development conferenceOctober of year twoRegistration and travel from the department education budget, if the abstract is acceptedAccepted abstract and conference program listing
What this page is doingEvery goal carries a date, a cost with its funder, and a specific form of proof. The table can be used directly in a supervisor meeting to check progress.
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Why Each Goal Matters

The MSN capstone is chosen to do double duty: it satisfies the degree and produces the needs assessment for the orientation redesign. Redesigning orientation addresses the area his supervisor rated weakest, education design, with a product the organization needs. Evaluating the redesign addresses the second weakness, program evaluation, and gives the hospital evidence about whether the change improved retention of new emergency nurses. Certification is timed for year two because eligibility requires a set number of practice hours in professional development and continuing education in the specialty (American Nurses Credentialing Center [ANCC], n.d.), which he will not have until then. Presenting at a conference extends his work beyond the hospital and meets the scholarship expectations in the specialty standards (Harper & Maloney, 2022).

Support From a Mentor

The plan also names one relationship. Mr. Delgado has asked a certified professional development specialist in the hospital's critical care education team to serve as his mentor for the two years. They will meet monthly for an hour, alternating between reviewing his orientation materials and discussing a specific standard from the specialty's scope and standards. The mentor will also review his evaluation report before it goes to the director and his conference abstract before submission. Because mentoring costs the hospital time, the director has approved one hour a month for both of them, and the mentor's written feedback on his evaluation report will be added to the proof for goal three.

Sequencing

The goals build on each other. The capstone produces the analysis for the redesign; the redesign must run for several months before it can be evaluated; the evaluation produces the content for the presentation; and the practice hours accumulated along the way make him eligible for certification. Attempting certification first would mean studying before he has the experience the exam assumes, and attempting a presentation first would leave him with nothing of his own to present.

Risks and Contingencies

Three risks could delay the plan. If the education council requests major changes to the redesigned orientation, goal two could slip by a quarter, which would delay the evaluation; he will present a draft to the council two months early to reduce that risk. If the hospital freezes its certification benefit, he will pay the exam fee himself and delay the review course, keeping the June date. If the conference abstract is not accepted, he will submit a poster to a state nursing association meeting and a manuscript to a professional development journal, so that the evaluation is still shared outside the hospital.

Review Schedule

Mr. Delgado will review the plan with his supervisor every quarter, using the table as the agenda. At each review, the proof column will be checked: either the evidence exists, or the goal is behind schedule and a revised date is recorded with a reason. The plan will be revised formally at the end of year one, when the supervisor completes his annual evaluation, and any new goals will follow the same four-part rule.

Balancing the Plan With the Job

The plan is deliberately limited to five goals over two years because Mr. Delgado's daily work, running orientation classes, checking competencies and answering questions from new nurses, will consume most of his time. Three of the five goals are built into that work rather than added on top of it, which is why most of their cost is counted in work hours rather than personal time. The two goals that require personal time, the degree and certification study, are scheduled in different years so they do not compete.

Conclusion

This two-year plan gives a new nursing professional development specialist five goals that come from the specialty's standards and his supervisor's assessment, and it holds each goal to a strict test of date, cost, funding and proof. The goals are sequenced so that each produces what the next needs, risks are named with contingencies, and quarterly reviews make progress visible. A plan written this way can be audited, which is the best evidence that it will be followed.

References

American Nurses Credentialing Center. (n.d.). Nursing professional development certification (NPD-BC). https://www.nursingworld.org/our-certifications/nursing-professional-development/

Doran, G. T. (1981). There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives. Management Review, 70(11), 35-36.

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

How this NUR 508 Module 6 example is structured

A development plan is judged on whether someone could check it later, so every goal follows the same pattern. The paper opens with the role and where the goals came from. A short section explains the rule that each goal must have a date, a cost and proof. The plan itself appears as a table, followed by a paragraph on each goal explaining why it matters. The paper then explains the order of the goals, names risks that could delay them, and sets review points with a supervisor.

Get NUR 508 Module 6 written to your instructions

Send your NUR 508 development plan instructions, the rubric and your gap assessment or goals. A plan built to that brief arrives within 24 to 48 hours; the first is free. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Southern New Hampshire University document.

NUR 508 Module 6 questions, answered

What does a NUR 508 development plan usually include?

Most prompts ask for specific goals for growing into the graduate role, linked to competencies or a gap assessment, with timelines, resources and ways of measuring progress. Some ask for short-term and long-term goals, or for goals across areas such as education, certification, leadership and scholarship.

What makes a development goal measurable?

It states what will be achieved, by when, and what evidence will show it was achieved, such as a certificate, a completed project with results, or a supervisor's evaluation. A goal such as improve my teaching becomes measurable when it names the course, the date and the evaluation score expected.

What is a nursing professional development specialist?

A nursing professional development specialist is a nurse who supports the learning and growth of other nurses in a health care organization, through orientation, onboarding, competency programs, continuing education and practice transitions. The specialty has its own scope and standards and a national board certification.