| Course | NR 536 Teaching Core Nursing Concepts: Strategies for Nurse Educators |
|---|---|
| Week | 3 |
| Paper type | Exemplar selection rationale |
| Length | About 1,110 words, 3 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | MSN, Nurse Educator |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 536 Week 3
Exemplar Selection Rationale: Why the Perfusion Unit Drops the Sepsis and Hypovolemia Pair, and Chooses Four Patients Who Share Only Reduced Flow and Differ in Site, Speed, Blood Pressure and Age
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 536: Teaching Core Nursing Concepts: Strategies for Nurse Educators
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Exemplar Selection Rationale: Why the Perfusion Unit Drops the Sepsis and Hypovolemia Pair, and Chooses Four Patients Who Share Only Reduced Flow and Differ in Site, Speed, Blood Pressure and Age
The Problem With the Current Pair
For three years, the perfusion unit in our third-semester concepts course has taught the concept through two exemplars: septic shock and hypovolemic shock. They are dramatic, well documented and common in clinical rotations. They are also a poor pair for teaching perfusion. Both patients arrive with a low blood pressure and a fast heart rate. Both respond, at least at first, to intravenous fluid. Both are managed in the emergency department or intensive care. The features they share on the surface are precisely the features students take home. On the unit examination, most students correctly identify impaired perfusion in a hypotensive patient, and fewer than half identify it in a patient with a cold, pulseless foot and a normal blood pressure. They have learned hypotension, not perfusion.
This rationale explains how the unit's exemplars will be reselected so that what they share is the concept itself, reduced flow to tissue, and almost nothing else.
The Principle
Students learn a concept by abstracting what its examples have in common. If the examples share irrelevant surface features, students abstract those too, and fail to recognize the concept when the surface changes. Research on analogical learning found that people who compared two cases sharing an underlying principle were far more likely to apply that principle to a new situation than people who studied the same cases one at a time (Gentner et al., 2003). Comparison helps, but only when the cases differ on the surface, so that the shared structure stands out.
Transfer to distant situations is hard. A review of transfer research described how learning often fails to carry across differences in context, setting, time and modality (Barnett & Ceci, 2002). For nursing students, the distant situations are the clinical units they have not yet worked on and the patients they have not yet met. Exemplars that all come from one setting prepare students for that setting only.
The Selection Rules
Four rules follow. First, each exemplar must satisfy every defining attribute in the unit's concept brief. Second, across the set, the exemplars must differ in site, speed of onset, blood pressure, patient age and care setting. Third, no surface feature should appear in more than two exemplars. Fourth, the set should include at least one exemplar students are likely to misclassify, so that the boundary is taught inside the unit rather than left to the examination.
The Four Exemplars
Table 1 shows the proposed set and how its members differ.
Table 1
Proposed Perfusion Exemplars
| Exemplar | Site of the flow problem | Speed | Blood pressure | Typical patient | Setting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction | Central: the pump | Chronic, with acute episodes | Normal or high | Older adult | Medical unit, clinic |
| Peripheral arterial disease | Arteries of the leg | Years | Often high | Older adult with diabetes or smoking history | Clinic, home |
| Compartment syndrome after tibial fracture | Local, closed space | Hours | Normal | Young adult | Orthopedic unit |
| Septic shock | Whole body: vessels and pump | Hours | Low | Any age | Emergency, intensive care |
What Each Exemplar Adds
Heart failure shows that a perfusion problem can come from the pump while blood pressure is normal or even high. Its tissue consequences are slow and easy to miss: rising creatinine, fatigue, cool hands. It breaks the link between perfusion and low pressure.
Peripheral arterial disease moves the problem to the vessels and stretches the time course to years. Its signs are local and visible at the bedside: pain on walking, pallor on elevation, weak pedal pulses, poor wound healing. It teaches students to assess a limb, not only a monitor.
Compartment syndrome keeps the problem local but makes it acute and places it in a young patient with healthy vessels and a normal blood pressure. The mechanism is pressure around the vessels, which is unfamiliar to students and therefore useful: it forces them to reason from flow rather than recognize a pattern. It is also the exemplar most likely to be missed, since the patient looks well apart from pain, which satisfies the fourth rule.
Septic shock stays in the set, but alone. It shows the systemic, fast and dangerous end of the concept and the importance of tissue markers such as lactate and urine output. Without hypovolemic shock beside it, hypotension appears in one exemplar of four rather than two of two.
Why Hypovolemic Shock Leaves
Hypovolemic shock is a good perfusion exemplar on its own. It leaves because it duplicates the surface of septic shock, and together they teach the wrong abstraction. It will return later in the program, in the fluid and electrolyte concept, where it illustrates volume loss, and in a fourth-semester unit on shock states, where comparing it with septic and cardiogenic shock is the point. By then, students will already understand perfusion as flow, and the shared hypotension will be a feature to compare rather than a feature to confuse with the concept.
How the Exemplars Will Be Used
The exemplars will be taught in pairs chosen to differ on the surface: heart failure with compartment syndrome in the first class, peripheral arterial disease with septic shock in the second. In each pair, students will first describe both patients, then list what the two share. If the lists produce only reduced flow and its tissue consequences, the pairing has worked. A concept-based curriculum depends on students recognizing concepts across situations they have not been taught directly (Giddens & Brady, 2007). Choosing exemplars that differ in everything except the concept is how the unit makes that recognition possible.
How the Change Will Be Judged
Clinical faculty will also be asked to note, during the semester's rotations, whether students caring for patients with any of the four exemplars describe the problem in terms of flow. The unit examination will include the same item that exposed the problem, a patient with a cold, pulseless foot and a normal blood pressure, and three new items with patients from settings not covered in class. If the new exemplar set works, the gap between hypotensive and normotensive items should narrow. I will compare results with the last three years, recognizing that cohorts differ and that the comparison is descriptive.
References
Barnett, S. M., & Ceci, S. J. (2002). When and where do we apply what we learn? A taxonomy for far transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 128(4), 612-637. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.128.4.612
Gentner, D., Loewenstein, J., & Thompson, L. (2003). Learning and transfer: A general role for analogical encoding. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(2), 393-408. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.95.2.393
Giddens, J. F., & Brady, D. P. (2007). Rescuing nursing education from content saturation: The case for a concept-based curriculum. Journal of Nursing Education, 46(2), 65-69. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20070201-05
NR 536 Week 3 instructions, in plain terms
This week you are generally asked to select exemplars for teaching a concept and justify your choices. Prompts ask for the concept, the exemplars, how each represents the concept, why they were chosen over alternatives and how they will be used. Start from what students currently learn from the existing exemplars; errors on examinations often show which surface feature they have abstracted. Write selection rules before choosing: each exemplar should meet the concept's attributes, and together they should differ on as many surface features as possible. Include an exemplar students are likely to misclassify. Explain any exemplar you remove. Present the set in a table and cite learning research in APA 7.
Inside the NR 536 Week 3 example
The rationale opens with evidence from the examination: students recognize perfusion in a hypotensive patient but not in a cold, pulseless foot with normal pressure. A section explains the principle behind the problem, supported by research showing that comparing cases with shared structure and different surfaces improves transfer. Four selection rules follow. Table 1 sets out four exemplars and how they differ. A section describes what each exemplar adds, including compartment syndrome as the case most likely to be missed. Another explains why hypovolemic shock leaves this unit and where it returns. The paper closes with how exemplars will be paired in class and how the change will be evaluated.
Reading the NR 536 Week 3 grading rubric
Exemplar rationale rubrics generally reward exemplars that clearly represent the concept, a sound justification for each, attention to variety, awareness of what students may learn incorrectly and a plan for use. Graders favor rationales that explain selection with explicit rules and learning research rather than preference. Showing that the set varies surface features while sharing the concept demonstrates understanding of how concepts are learned. Justifying the removal of a good exemplar shows judgment. A table that makes the variation visible supports clarity. A plan for pairing exemplars and evaluating the change links the rationale to teaching practice. Correct citations complete the evaluation. Graders also look for a named way to evaluate the change, since exemplar choices are hypotheses about learning.
Common NR 536 Week 3 mistakes, and how to avoid them
A frequent problem is choosing exemplars because they are common or dramatic without asking what they share beyond the concept. Check the surface features. Another is selecting exemplars all from one setting, which teaches the setting. Spread them. Students also add exemplars without removing any, producing a crowded unit. Decide what leaves and say why. Avoid exemplars that do not clearly meet the concept's attributes, since they confuse more than they teach. Include at least one patient students might miss. Do not forget to explain how the exemplars will be used together, because the comparison is where learning happens. Finally, plan to check whether the new set changed what students learned.
Get a NR 536 Week 3 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 3 instructions, the concept your section assigned, and any selection form or table your classroom provides. A custom example is written to those requirements, with the rejected pair argued rather than mentioned, and returned inside 24-48h. The first one is free, and the case list can be swapped if yours is prescribed.
More NR 536 papers and MSN samples
- NR 536 Week 1: Discussion Committing to a Concept
- NR 536 Week 2: Concept Definition Brief
- NR 536 Week 4: Concept Map
- NR 536 Week 5: Concept Based Lesson Plan
- NR 536 Week 6: Case Study Analysis
- NR 536 Week 7: Transfer Assessment Design
- NR 536 Week 8: Teaching Unit Synthesis
- NR 535 Week 3: Learning Theory Brief
- NR 524 Week 3: Program Outcome Set
NR 536 Week 3 questions, answered
How many exemplars does a rationale usually defend?
Two or three carry an argument better than five. Every additional case has to earn its place by exposing an attribute the others cannot, and past three that becomes hard to claim honestly. A long list also weakens the comparison, since the point is that these particular patients share nothing except the concept, and that gets harder to demonstrate as the set grows.
Can a rejected pair be one my classmates chose?
Yes, and it often makes the sharpest section, provided the rejection is argued about learning rather than about the classmate. The claim to make is what a class taught that pair would fail to recognize afterward. Keep it on the misconception the pairing installs, name no one, and the paragraph reads as analysis instead of as a complaint about another paper.
Do the cases have to come from my own practice?
Rarely required, and there is reason to be careful with it. Cases an experienced nurse remembers vividly are remembered for reasons a beginner cannot see, which is exactly the blindness this course keeps circling back to. If you use one, say what a learner without your background would notice in it, and strip anything that could identify a real patient or unit.
Where can I find a free NR 536 Week 3 sample paper?
The four-exemplar perfusion rationale above is the complete NR 536 Week 3 sample, posted in full with no charge. For a rationale supporting your own concept, list the exemplars you use now and a revised selection can be drafted.
How many exemplars should the NR 536 rationale include?
Enough to vary the concept's surface features, often three to five. The sample uses four perfusion exemplars that differ in site, speed, blood pressure, age and setting.