Biosciences in Nurse Education (BiNE).
The Biosciences in Nursing Education (BiNE) Group was set up in 2012 as a Specialist Reference Group of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) Health and Social Care Cluster. The group brings together academics with experience in pre-and post-registration nurse education from across the United Kingdom (UK) to share discuss and develop bioscience education scholarship and research.
The group aims to provide support and information to those who teach biosciences within the nursing curriculum and provides a platform to enable nurse educators to share best practice facilitate networking and develop collaborative partnerships with the intention of enhancing students’ understanding and application of biosciences for clinical decision making and nursing care.
The group is an open group comprised of over 30 nursing and bioscience academics whose work includes teaching biosciences to nursing students at UK higher education institutions (HEIs). We welcome new members and meet twice a year to share good practice and promote collaborative projects. Members never fail to be inspired by colleagues who present aspects of their teaching practice at these meetings and often return to their own institutions determined to implement such innovations themselves.
With an evidence based approach to teaching high on our agenda the group not only share their teaching practice but also findings from their own evaluation / pedagogic research projects thus promoting the adoption of new evidence based teaching practices on a wider scale. All aimed of course to enhancing students’ grasp and understanding of the biosciences in nursing. In addition as a collective group the network has a unique opportunity to join forces to undertake collaborative research in this field.
Biosciences Quality Assurance Framework (B-QAF): Learning Outcomes for Biosciences in Pre- registration Nursing Programmes
A recent output from BiNE activities has been the production of a Biosciences Quality Assurance Framework (B-QAF) for Pre-registration Nursing Education. In the absence of explicit national professional guidance which has led to variation in the extent and level of bioscience taught across AEI’s (Taylor et al 2015) this framework is intended as a resource for nursing educators to use when developing curricula and in pedagogical planning. It suggests essential learning outcomes supplementary guidance and provides a selected number of nursing relevant examples to guide educators to promote engagement and application of the biosciences. It aims to be adaptable for and relevant to the domains of nursing and all fields of practice with the objective of facilitating both knowledge gain and knowledge transfer.
The B-QAF framework and further information about the BiNE Group can be found at: http://www.bcu.ac.uk/bine
