There are many places online to look for curriculum design ideas. A basic to remember is to blueprint your course material and course calendar to your course objectives (COs) that have been matched to the Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs). But once that is done how to decide what is most important to teach and how to apply it can take some patience and practice. If you are teaching a core didactic course such as Health Assessment, Foundations, Med/Surg, Pediatrics, OB a good place to start is the NCLEX blueprint for common topics tested and what is focused on for the exam. Every class is unique in what that looks like but this is typically the most common disorders and diseases seen, how to prioritize care and be a safe basic level nurse. Remember they do not need to be experts at everything but good at the basics and recognizing things that can cause harm or decline in a patient. They will build the specifics after they graduate!

So if this is your first time or even your 5th time teaching a course here is a task list to consider in your prep. Martha Johnson with Breakout RN has this great blog post about Project Planning and class prep. https://www.breakoutrn.com/idea-bank/building-a-project-plan-as-a-nurse-educator

This is what I (Dr. Haskell) do in the week before class to prepare for the quarter. Keep in mind that if you are building your course material this is a separate task list.

Create or Revise the Syllabus- Remember to look at the days for the holidays each quarter!
Print or save rosters- I do this as an Excell spreadsheet you can download in the Canvas gradebook. It is good for 2 reasons to make notes about specific students such as ADA accommodations and as well as have an email list for the students if/when canvas is down you can email them!
Put in your Welcome Announcement in Canvas. I also do weekly summary announcements to help keep students on track. These have tips for studying the content as well as a summary of assignments due. I have these all built in a "Master" course that I copy to each cohort each quarter and adjust as needed.
Update Canvas lessons (if you don't have them all updated make sure you have turned off the content you do not want students to see yet. Some students print and plan the whole course on day 1 when they get access)
Check the drop date for the course to help plan how to help students who are struggling!
Prepare online exams or at a minimum put them on your calendar when you need to prioritize completing and building them during the quarter- Note often you might have to do this weekly to keep up as you build out material but it gets easier each term as you have a bank to build from
Setup quizzes- see note about exams
Review gradebook- This will get built within the first 2 weeks of the course from Academic Support so it might not be accurate when the course is first built during the break.

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