Professional practice portfolio use Essay

Professional practice portfolio use Essay

Professional practice portfolios are asserted to be beneficial to demonstrate the capability for professional nursing practice.

• Describe a professional practice portfolio and the recommended components.
• Present a written argument for the use of a professional practice portfolio to demonstrate professional nursing practice. This argument should demonstrate critical thinking and analysis of the issues; include why portfolios should be used and a discussion of the benefits and challenges of using a professional practice portfolio to demonstrate capability for professional nursing practice.
• Discuss and differentiate between management and leadership competencies and describe how development of these competencies could be evidenced in a professional practice portfolio.

• Support your argument with at least seven scholarly sources from 2011 onwards

Your portfolio – it’s something that every nurse needs to have. Yet, nurses often admit that their portfolio is more of a collection of documents in a shoebox rather than a comprehensive record of their professional achievements and competence to practice.

In reality, your professional portfolio could be the most critical tool you have when it comes to advancing your nursing career and demonstrating your continuing professional development as a nurse.

A well presented professional portfolio will most certainly help you apply for a new job, but it is also essential for showcasing your development and communicating your competence to practice as a nurse. It can even make you a better nurse.

So what if you don’t have a professional portfolio, or you have a portfolio that is disorganised or sitting in a shoebox somewhere? Why will a portfolio help you in your career, and how do you start creating one?

Let’s start with the basics.

What is a professional portfolio for nurses?
A professional portfolio is a structured collection of carefully selected materials that provides credible evidence of a nurse’s employment, education and professional development as a health professional over time. Portfolios showcase achievements, demonstrate professional development and help in career planning.

Your portfolio is not just a resume or a random assortment of papers and certificates. Each item in your portfolio has a purpose, and when carefully structured and organised, it becomes a useful tool for a variety of purposes.

By creating and maintaining your nursing portfolio, you can capture your journey as a healthcare practitioner. That not only helps you reach your career goals – it also demonstrates how you meet your professional standards, helps you monitor your progress and plan your professional growth as a nurse.

Why should I have a nursing portfolio?
According to Andre, Heartfield and Cusak, there are three reasons for maintaining a professional portfolio:

1) Provide evidence of continuing competence
Your portfolio helps you communicate your learning, development and level of competence against your professional standards of practice.

2) Developing lifelong learning and reflective practices
Healthcare is constantly changing, and as health professionals, nurses must continually develop, grow and adapt to change. So, having a positive approach to lifelong learning is critical.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource

 

 

Your portfolio can help you demonstrate your capacity for lifelong learning and that you have the necessary capabilities needed to cope with change and continually learn to ensure currency and competence in practice.

3) Career planning
Your professional portfolio can help you consistently review and re-evaluate your career plans. Not only does it help you put a roadmap in place for what you’d like to do with your career – it’s also a way of identifying your strengths, filling gaps in your experience, and motivating you to find opportunities to progress.

How To Make An Impressive Professional Nursing Portfolio

How do I make a structure for my portfolio?
Because a professional portfolio can serve different purposes, they can be organised and structured in different ways.

To help you decide how to create a structure for your portfolio and organise your content, ask yourself the following questions:

Who am I as a healthcare professional?
Here you want to clarify:

What is it that you want to contribute as a healthcare professional?
What capabilities do you have and how did you achieve these?
What do you value about what you do as a nurse?
What are your long-term goals?
Who is reading my portfolio?
Are your readers from a regulatory body, an employment agency, a learning organisation, or somewhere else? What will they want to know about you and see from you to reach your goals?

What purpose does my portfolio serve?
Try asking these key questions to ascertain the purpose of your portfolio:

Is your portfolio more about showing your continual learning and development?
Is your portfolio more about showcasing your achievements? Or…
Is it about both showcasing your achievements and demonstrating your continual learning and development?
Determining the answers to these questions will help you determine what evidence to include in your professional portfolio so that it meets your purpose. It will also help impress your readers – whether it’s an employer or a regulatory body.