WGU C920: Contemporary Curriculum Design and Development in Nursing Education

What C920 Asks You to Do

Contemporary Curriculum Design and Development in Nursing Education (course C920) sits inside Western Governors University's Master of Science in Nursing, Nursing Education specialty, within the Leavitt School of Health. It is the course where you stop being only a nurse who knows content and start becoming a nurse educator who can build the learning itself. You take a nursing subject and design a real course around it: outcomes, learning activities, and the assessments that prove students met those outcomes.

The work is a performance assessment, not a proctored test. In the versions students most often describe, the task hands you a defined course to build rather than a blank page, commonly a community or public health nursing course framed around the BSN nurse's role in promoting community health, and asks you to develop it module by module: course description, measurable objectives, student learning outcomes, content, learning resources, and activities. Because WGU refreshes its assessments over time, treat that as the likely shape and confirm your exact prompt, course title, and required modules in your current course.

Direct answer: There is no multiple-choice exam to cram for. You pass C920 by building a complete, internally aligned course design and writing it up against the rubric. Read every rubric aspect before you draft a word, keep your objectives, activities, and assessments all pointing at the same measurable outcomes, follow the module structure the task specifies, and submit early enough to use evaluator feedback if a section comes back for revision.

If you are here, you are most likely a working RN moving toward a faculty, staff-development, or clinical-educator role. That background matters: you already understand what nurses need to know, so C920 is less about nursing content and more about learning the language and structure of instructional design. The payoff is real. The course-design skills you practice here are exactly what accreditors and hiring committees expect a nurse educator to demonstrate.

The Skills the Task Measures

C920 is built around a systematic instructional-design process. Many students frame their work through the ADDIE model, a widely used instructional-design framework. Whatever framework your course provides, expect to be evaluated on competencies like these:

• Analysis: identifying the learning need behind the course, describing your target learners, and framing the problem the course solves.
• Designing measurable outcomes: writing learning objectives that are specific, observable, and tied to an appropriate cognitive level.
• Selecting instructional strategies: matching teaching methods and learning activities to your outcomes and to adult-learner and nursing-education principles.
• Developing course elements: assembling the required modules, materials, and a logical sequence that a real class could actually follow.
• Assessment and evaluation: choosing formative and summative assessments that genuinely measure the stated outcomes, and planning how you would evaluate the course itself.
• Alignment: showing that objectives, activities, and assessments all connect, and reflecting standards relevant to nursing education.

Notice the through-line: alignment. Evaluators are checking whether every piece of your design serves the same outcomes rather than existing on its own.

How Demanding Is It, Really?

Many students describe C920 as moderate rather than brutal, and note that the challenge is conceptual, not volume-based. The recurring theme in student discussions is that the writing and structure trip people up more than the ideas do: a design can be thoughtful yet still come back for revision because a rubric aspect was underdeveloped or an assessment did not clearly map to an objective.

Because this is a performance assessment, your pace depends heavily on your comfort with academic writing and instructional-design vocabulary. Students with prior teaching or preceptor experience often report moving through it faster, while those new to curriculum theory report needing more time to absorb terms like measurable outcomes and formative assessment. Plan for steady, deliberate work over a few weeks rather than a single long weekend, and treat the first evaluator response as part of the normal process, not a setback.

A Working Study Plan for a Design Course

Studying for a build-something course is different from studying for a test. Your goal is not recall; it is producing a document that satisfies a rubric. Structure your effort around that.

• Reverse-engineer the rubric first. Before reading the course materials deeply, print or copy every rubric aspect and turn each one into a checklist item. This is the single most effective move in any WGU performance assessment. You are writing to those aspects, so know them cold.
• Map the required modules early. Because the task defines the course and its modules for you, list every module and every element each module must contain before you draft. That map keeps you from over-building one module and starving another.
• Space the work across sessions. Draft the course description one day, outcomes the next, assessments after that. Spacing lets each section settle and makes alignment problems easier to spot when you return with fresh eyes.
• Build an alignment table. Make a simple grid with columns for outcome, learning activity, and assessment. If any row has a gap, you have found a weakness before your evaluator does. This single artifact prevents the most common revision.
• Use the course-provided templates. WGU courses typically supply structure and examples; follow them rather than inventing your own format. Evaluators are looking for specific elements, and templates keep you from omitting one.
• Self-explain against the standard. For each design choice, write one sentence answering "why does this serve my outcome?" If you cannot justify it, revise it.

Curriculum and assessment thinking shows up across WGU too. If you want broader background on instructional design, WGU's education guides on D630 Designing Curriculum and Instruction I and D293 Assessment and Learning Analytics cover the same core ideas from a K-12 angle, and they can sharpen how you talk about outcomes and measurement.

Where Students Trip Up

• Vague objectives. Writing "students will understand" instead of a measurable, observable verb. Evaluators want outcomes you could actually assess.
• Broken alignment. An assessment that measures something the objectives never promised, or an activity that has no home in the outcomes. This is the most cited reason for revision.
• Ignoring the required structure. The task usually specifies the modules and elements to include; skipping one, or polishing some modules while leaving others thin, is an easy and avoidable revision. Build every required piece to the same depth.
• Skipping the "why." Listing choices without justifying them against learning principles. The rubric usually rewards rationale, not just decisions.
• Treating feedback as failure. A returned task is direction, not judgment. Students who revise precisely to the evaluator's notes typically clear it quickly.
• Ignoring evaluation of the course itself. Forgetting the final piece, how you would judge whether the course worked, leaves the design incomplete.

C920 Readiness Checklist

Before you submit, work through these self-checks. If you can answer yes to each, your design is in strong shape.

• Can you name and briefly explain each phase of your instructional-design process in your own words?
• Can you state the learning need your course addresses and describe your target learners?
• Are all of your learning outcomes measurable, with observable verbs?
• Can you draw a straight line from every outcome to at least one activity and one assessment?
• Have you built every required module and element the task specifies, to a consistent depth?
• Have you included both formative and summative assessment, and can you justify each?
• Have you described how you would evaluate the effectiveness of the course itself?
• Have you addressed every single aspect listed in the rubric, by name?
• Have you justified your major design choices against learning or nursing-education principles?
• Have you left enough time to revise if one section comes back?

C920 FAQ

Is C920 an objective assessment or a performance assessment?

C920 is assessed through a performance assessment, meaning you submit a course-design project rather than sit a proctored multiple-choice exam. Your work is scored against a rubric, and sections can be returned for revision until each aspect is met.

How long does C920 usually take?

It varies with your writing comfort and instructional-design background. Many students report completing it in a few weeks of steady effort, with those who have teaching or preceptor experience often moving faster. Build in buffer time in case a section needs revision.

What framework does the course use?

Many students organize their work with the ADDIE model, Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation, as the backbone for designing their course. Confirm the exact expectations in your current course materials, since WGU updates content over time.

What is the most common reason a submission is returned?

Misalignment and vague outcomes lead the list. If an assessment does not clearly measure a stated objective, or an objective is not measurable, an evaluator will usually ask for revision. An alignment table built before you write prevents most of these issues.

Do I choose my own course topic?

Usually not. In the versions students commonly describe, the task defines the course for you, often a community or public health nursing course, and asks you to design it out fully. Your job is to develop each required module completely rather than to pick the subject, so read the current prompt closely and build to what it specifies.

How does C920 fit the rest of the nursing education specialty?

It builds the design-and-assessment foundation that later education and practicum work draws on. Related WGU health coursework such as C790 Foundations in Nursing Informatics rounds out the systems-and-data side of the educator role. You can also browse the full Leavitt School of Health hub or the complete index of WGU study guides to plan your term.

For official course details, competency units, and current requirements, always confirm with WGU directly at the WGU MSN Nursing Education program page.