Leveraging artificial intelligence to facilitate backward design and competency scaffolding in undergraduate nursing education.

Competency-based nursing education is facilitated by creating a scaffolded structure of outcomes, assessments, and educational experiences that challenge students to grow in critical thinking, clinical, and professional skills. Given the interdependent nature of curricular elements and the faculty-student relationship, the success of a competency-based curriculum is dependent upon the structure built. Backward design can facilitate curriculum development, but depending on organizational structure within a nursing program, can be a substantial time and resource burden. The purpose of this article is to explore how artificial intelligence (AI) tools can be leveraged within this structure-building process to promote timely design and curricular transformation aligned with competency-based standards. Considering how AI tools should be employed for support, rather than replacement, of human efforts, an approach for utilization of AI-Assistant tools in developing outcomes and assessments is presented alongside a thoughtful consideration of how these tools could be further utilized in curricular evaluation and ongoing revisions. As the capabilities of these tools expand, so will opportunities for integration at all levels of the competency-based educational process.