| Course | NURS 6351 Role of the Nurse Educator |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 2 |
| Paper type | Role analysis paper |
| Length | About 760 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NURS 6351 Week 2
Teaching, Service and Scholarship in the Nurse Educator Role: Three Kinds of Work, One Kind of Judgment
Student Name
College of Nursing, Walden University
NURS 6351: Role of the Nurse Educator
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Teaching, Service and Scholarship in the Nurse Educator Role: Three Kinds of Work, One Kind of Judgment
The academic nurse educator's work is usually described in three parts: teaching, service and scholarship. This analysis takes each apart into the duties it contains, the evidence that describes it and what it costs the person doing it, and then puts the parts back together. The claim is that the three share one demand: a judgment, made on behalf of people who are not in the room, about what is good enough. The sections are deliberately unequal, because the parts of the role are unequal in the time they take.
Teaching
Teaching is the part most people picture, and it takes most of the week. Its duties are concrete: the educator sequences a course so that each unit builds on the last; writes examination items and clinical evaluation criteria; chooses which clinical placements fit which learners; supervises students caring for real patients; grades and gives feedback; and sits with a student who has failed a clinical rotation to explain why and what happens next. In a clinical course, the educator is responsible for patients as well as students, since the student's care is delivered under the educator's license and oversight.
These duties match the first four core competencies the National League for Nursing describes for nurse educators: helping students learn, guiding their growth into the profession, assessing and evaluating them, and shaping curricula and judging program results (Halstead, 2019). The published scope of practice for academic and academic clinical nurse educators adds that the clinical teaching role carries distinct responsibilities for safety and for judging performance in the practice setting (Christensen & Simmons, 2020). What the competency statements describe in the abstract, the duties above make visible: the educator decides, again and again, whether a student's performance meets a standard that protects future patients.
The cost is hours and a willingness to be unpopular. Clinical days start before dawn, grading happens at night, and failing a student who has worked hard is the hardest conversation in the role.
Service
Service is the shortest section because it is the part of the role nobody outside it sees, not because it matters least. Its duties are committee seats, including curriculum, admissions and student progression committees; preparing accreditation self-studies and program evaluation reports; advising students; and representing the program to clinical partners. The competency framework includes functioning within the educational environment and acting as a change agent and leader (Halstead, 2019), which is what these duties amount to. A progression committee, for instance, decides whether a student who has failed a course may continue, and its judgment shapes who enters the profession.
The cost is attention: service work is essential, rarely rewarded and easily swallowed by teaching deadlines.
Scholarship
Scholarship in this role is narrower than in research faculty roles, and the narrowing is a choice this analysis makes deliberately. Boyer (1990) proposed that academic scholarship includes discovery, integration, application and teaching, and for most nurse educators it is the scholarship of teaching that fits: studying one's own teaching, testing a new approach, and sharing what was learned through presentations or publication. Engaging in scholarship is one of the league's eight competencies (Halstead, 2019). Its duties are designing an evaluation of a course change, collecting and analyzing the results, and presenting them so other educators can use them.
The cost is time protected from everything else, which the other two parts constantly invade. The pressure is growing: projections estimated that retirements from 2016 to 2025 would equal a third of the nursing faculty workforce of 2015, removing many of the most experienced educators and scholars (Fang & Kesten, 2017).
What the Three Share
The three parts are not ranked here, because the analysis does not support a ranking. What they share is a judgment about what is good enough, made on behalf of people who are absent. In teaching, the educator judges whether a student's care is safe enough for patients the student has not yet met. In service, a progression committee judges whether a student may continue toward a license that will let them care for the public. In scholarship, the educator judges whether evidence about a teaching change is strong enough for other educators to adopt it. Each judgment is made under pressure from the people who are present, the student, the colleague or the author's own hopes, and each has to be made for the people who are not. That shared demand is what makes the role one role rather than three jobs.
References
Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Christensen, L. S., & Simmons, L. E. (2020). The scope of practice for academic nurse educators and academic clinical nurse educators (3rd ed.). National League for Nursing.
Fang, D., & Kesten, K. (2017). Retirements and succession of nursing faculty in 2016-2025. Nursing Outlook, 65(5), 633-642. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2017.03.003
Halstead, J. A. (Ed.). (2019). NLN core competencies for nurse educators: A decade of influence. National League for Nursing.
What the NURS 6351 Week 2 instructions ask for
The Week 2 assignment in NURS 6351 usually asks for a short paper that describes the three traditional areas of the academic nurse educator role, explains the duties in each and uses published competency statements to support the description. Many sections add a question about how the areas relate, and that is the part students skip. Expect a two to four page limit, APA format and a requirement to cite the NLN core competencies or a comparable framework. Some prompts ask you to say which area you expect to find hardest, which can be answered in the closing paragraph without turning the paper into a personal reflection. Read the rubric rows before drafting, since integration is often a row of its own.
How this NURS 6351 Week 2 example is built
The introduction states the claim the sections will support instead of defining the role, so the reader knows the analysis has a destination. Teaching comes first and runs longest, with duties written as verbs: sequencing a course, writing items, choosing placements, sitting with a student who failed. The competency statements appear after the duties, confirming them. Service is the shortest section and says why in its first sentence. Scholarship cites Boyer's categories and chooses the scholarship of teaching as the version most educators carry, and it adds the faculty retirement projection from Fang and Kesten as the pressure on that part of the role. The final section refuses to rank the three and names the judgment common to all of them, with one example from each area.
Reading the NURS 6351 Week 2 rubric
Rubrics for this analysis usually hold a row for accuracy and completeness of the role description, a row for integration or analysis, a row for evidence and a row for APA and writing. The accuracy row is where most papers do well, since the duties are easy to find. The integration row separates the top band from the middle, and it rewards a paper that argues something about the three areas together rather than describing each in turn. Evidence is judged by kind as much as number, so the NLN competencies and a scope of practice document score better than textbook summaries. Writing marks go to clear headings that match the prompt, a title page and a reference list in APA 7 order.
NURS 6351 Week 2 help: mistakes that cost marks
Students most often lose marks here by giving each area the same length and the same kind of evidence, which reads as a list of three definitions. Another mistake is writing the whole paper about the classroom and treating clinical teaching as an afterthought, when the clinical setting is where the educator carries responsibility for patients as well as students. Some papers confuse this analysis with a philosophy statement and fill it with beliefs about learning. Others cite the competencies as a block at the top and never connect a single duty to a single competency. If your section asks which area will be hardest for you, answer it in two or three sentences at the end, keep the rest analytic, and let the cost of each area show inside its own section.
Get a NURS 6351 Week 2 example written to your instructions
Send the assignment prompt and the rubric your section posted, along with any framework it names, and a NURS 6351 Week 2 role analysis comes back written to that wording. First custom one free, back inside 24 to 48 hours, formatted the way your section asks rather than the way this page happens to show.
More NURS 6351 papers and MSN samples
- NURS 6351 Week 1: Discussion post
- NURS 6351 Week 3: Competency self-assessment
- NURS 6351 Week 4: Educator interview
- NURS 6351 Week 5: Teaching philosophy
- NURS 6351 Week 6: Ethics case
- NURS 6351 Week 7: Observation write-up
- NURS 6351 Week 8: Discussion post
- NURS 6351 Week 9: Mentorship plan
- NURS 6351 Week 10: Role development plan
- NURS 6351 Week 11: Portfolio
- NURS 6341 Week 2: Topic proposal
- NURS 6331 Week 2: Tool review
- NURS 6321 Week 2: Needs assessment
- NURS 6241 Week 2: Environmental scan
NURS 6351 Week 2 questions, answered
Which competency framework does the example use?
The one these prompts most often point at, a published set of nurse educator competency statements, cited inline and listed at the end. If your prompt names a different framework or a state board document instead, the argument holds and only the evidence swaps, because the paper is organized around duties rather than around the numbering of any one source.
Does the paper have to cover all three parts equally?
Nothing requires it and the example does not. Equal sections are the most common way this assignment reads as inexperienced, since the role is not lived in equal thirds anywhere. What the example does instead is state its weighting early and defend it, which turns an imbalance into a claim a grader can accept or contest.
Is this the same as a teaching philosophy?
No, and confusing the two costs points in both directions. A role analysis describes the position and its duties from outside, using evidence about the profession. A philosophy statement argues what the writer believes about learning and what those beliefs oblige them to do. The example holds the first side of that line throughout.
Where can I find a free NURS 6351 Week 2 sample paper?
This page carries the whole Week 2 role analysis, from title page to references, and it is free to read. A version written to your own section's prompt and rubric can be requested at no charge and typically comes back within 24 to 48 hours.
How long should the NURS 6351 Week 2 role analysis be?
Most sections set two to four pages of body text, not counting the title page and references. The example sits near the middle of that range, which leaves enough room for the closing argument without padding the service section.