Kolb's four stages carry one planning decision through this NU590 Unit 9 journal entry: deferring surgeon office outreach, the conflicting instructions that followed and the order the writer would now follow. Searches like "nu 590 unit 9 assignment example", "nu590 unit 9 sample" and "nu590 unit 9 example" land here.
Two Sheets on a Check-In Counter: A Kolb Journal Entry on Deferring Surgeon Office Outreach
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
NU590: Applying Principles of Advanced Nursing Practice - Clinical
Unit 9 Reflective Journal Entry
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The bracketed header lines are for the student's own entry date, running site hours and setting; the patient is described without identifying detail.
Entry date: [date] Running hours on site: [hours from the student's own log] Setting: [outpatient surgery department, pre-admission and check-in]
Concrete Experience
On [Wednesday] of the second week after go-live, a pre-op nurse brought me two sheets a patient had handed over at check-in. One was the office sheet from the surgeon's practice, whose instruction was the familiar midnight rule. The other was the revised instruction sheet mailed after the pre-admission call, which gave a last clear drink time of [0630] for an [0830] arrival. The patient had followed the office sheet, explaining that the surgeon's instructions seemed more official. The case went ahead on time, and the patient had fasted from fluids for about [thirteen] hours. Nothing went wrong in a clinical sense; the patient was simply thirsty and had received no benefit from the change.
Reflective Observation
My first reaction was that the patient had made a reasonable choice. A surgeon's office is the first voice a patient hears, and its sheet arrives with the surgeon's name at the top. What unsettled me was that I had predicted exactly this. My Unit 4 stakeholder analysis ordered the groups by the route a fasting instruction travels, and it placed the office schedulers first, noting that they spoke before anyone else and were the hardest group to reach. Then, in Unit 7, I scheduled the offices for the second week after launch.
The reason I wrote in the plan was access: I knew nobody at the offices, and I expected the chair's letter to persuade them better with a week of audit data behind it. That reason is true. On reflection, it is not the whole truth. I was uncomfortable approaching surgeons' staff, who are outside nursing, work for someone else and might say no or simply ignore me. Scheduling them later let me start with the people I knew, the pre-admission nurses, and feel that the project was moving. I chose the order that suited my comfort and wrote down the reason that sounded most like planning.
I also notice that the plan's safeguard, the check-in question, did its job in the narrow sense. It found the conflict. But a safeguard at the end of the route cannot undo a fast that has already happened; it can only record it.
Abstract Conceptualization
Kolb (1984) describes learning as a cycle in which experience becomes knowledge only when it is reflected on and turned into an idea that can be tested. The idea that emerges here is about sequence. Research on conflicting health information suggests that when people receive contradictory messages, they may respond with confusion, distrust of both sources or a retreat to whichever option seems safest or most authoritative (Carpenter et al., 2016). In fasting, the safest-seeming option is always the stricter one, so a conflict between two sheets will usually resolve toward the midnight rule, regardless of which sheet is correct. The project's change can only reach patients if no earlier voice contradicts it.
Stakeholder analysis literature warns that maps drawn at the start of a project are only useful if they shape the decisions made after them (Brugha & Varvasovszky, 2000). My map was accurate; my plan overrode it for convenience. The lesson is less that I analyzed badly than that I did not let the analysis decide the order.
There is a further point about authority. The patient trusted the surgeon's sheet because it carried the surgeon's name, not because its content was better. A hospital instruction reaching the patient later, from a nurse the patient has never met, starts at a disadvantage that no improvement in its wording can fully overcome. The practical implication is that the offices do not need to be persuaded to write a new instruction themselves; they need only to stop contradicting ours, perhaps with a single line telling patients that the hospital will call with their eating and drinking times.
Active Experimentation
Between now and the final unit, I plan to ask the chair to call the two offices that have not yet responded, rather than waiting for a reply to the note, and I will track at check-in how many patients mention a different instruction each week. In the next rollout I lead, in this project or any other, the rule will be first voices reached first, even if launch has to wait. If I cannot reach a group that speaks to patients before my change does, I will state that as a reason to delay, not as a step to be phased later. I will also ask myself, when I write a reason for a sequencing choice, whether it is the reason or the one that sounds best.
References
Brugha, R., & Varvasovszky, Z. (2000). Stakeholder analysis: A review. Health Policy and Planning, 15(3), 239-246. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/15.3.239
Carpenter, D. M., Geryk, L. L., Chen, A. T., Nagler, R. H., Dieckmann, N. F., & Han, P. K. J. (2016). Conflicting health information: A critical research need. Health Expectations, 19(6), 1173-1182. https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.12438
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice Hall.
How this NU590 Unit 9 example is structured
The entry spends its words where Kolb's cycle does its work, in the two middle stages. Concrete experience stays short and factual, because the patient matters here only as the point where two instructions met; no detail identifies anyone. Reflective observation is candid about motive, distinguishing the reason written into the plan from the one the writer admits on reflection. Abstract conceptualization connects that admission to theory and to the stakeholder analysis written three units before, which had predicted the conflict and been overridden by convenience. That link is the entry's strongest move, since it shows the writer reading a personal decision against evidence already in hand. Active experimentation is stated as an observable change in sequence, not a resolution to communicate better. Date, hours and any comment the preceptor adds remain lines for the writer and preceptor to complete.
Get an NU590 Unit 9 example written to your instructions
Because a journal records decisions only you made, the sample demonstrates Kolb's cycle, or whichever model your section assigns, on a composite planning choice. Sketch a practicum decision broadly, without identifying details, alongside the Unit 9 criteria. Expect the free first custom sample within 24-48h, written to those instructions and leaving every header line for you. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
NU590 Unit 9 questions, answered
Will the sample become my journal entry?
No. It demonstrates the parts a finished entry holds, but the entry itself has to be yours. Journals record your own decisions, hours and observations at a real site, and faculty often compare them with preceptor feedback. The sample uses a composite planning decision to demonstrate structure and depth, with the date, hours and setting left in brackets for you to complete.
Why use Kolb's cycle for a reflective journal?
Kolb's cycle moves from an experience, through observing it and forming a working theory about it, to active experimentation, so it suits decisions as well as clinical moments: the last stage asks for something you will try differently. Many sections accept Gibbs, Rolfe or Johns instead. Use the model your instructions name; if none is named, choose one and name it in the opening line.
Should a journal entry examine a mistake?
Often the most useful entries do, as long as the analysis goes beyond admitting it. Explain why the decision looked sound when you made it, what evidence you had, and what you would change. The sample examines a sequencing choice that let conflicting instructions reach patients, then shows that the Unit 4 route diagram had predicted exactly that outcome.