Practicum Experience

The practicum experience provides a significant hands-on opportunity to cultivate your professional growth and development. This course includes a 216-hour practicum as part of the 1,000 clinical hours that are required for the DNP credential.

During your practicum experience for this course, you will cultivate effective interactions to promote the implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of an evidence-based project. In addition, you should pay close attention to the role of leadership in such endeavors and reflect on your own development of leadership competencies, including skillful communication. As you do this, also think about how you may meaningfully contribute to the organization during your remaining time in the setting.

This week you prepare for the practicum experience by developing a plan, including learning objectives and activities. (This is addressed in this week’s Discussion as well.)

To prepare:

• Think about learning objectives that will guide your practicum hours, as well as the activities you will undertake to achieve those objectives. Draft two or three learning objectives that are related to the AACN Essentials, your practice area specialty competencies, and the focus of this course.
• Refer to the Practicum Time Log and Journal document found in this week’s Learning Resources.
• Develop a timeline for your practicum experience.
• You are required to keep a log of the time you spend related to your practicum experience. You can access your time log from the Welcome page in your Meditrek account. Please make sure to continuously input your hours throughout the term. Time logs are reviewed by your instructors in weeks 3, 7 and 11.

To complete:

Write a 1- to 2-page paper that includes the following:

• Two or three learning objectives for your practicum hours that are aligned to the AACN Essentials, your specialty area competencies, and the focus of this course (i.e., implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of an evidence-based project)
• Key leadership and other activities you will undertake to fulfill your identified learning objectives
• A proposed timeline for accomplishing your practicum hours