BACKGROUND: Historically, lecture-based classrooms have been the pedagogy of choice for higher education. Nursing education has the opportunity to pivot from the use of lecture-only pedagogy to active learning platforms with the integration of competency-based education (CBE) while considering the learning needs of master's entry students. METHOD: This scaffolded education innovation (SEI) used pre-class, in-class, and post-class activities grounded in CBE with spaced repetition techniques in an adult and geriatric nursing course. RESULTS: Students reported that active learning activities helped them learn and apply content and that having a variety of learning methods was useful for understanding the material. CONCLUSION: Faculty can benefit from sharing experiences after leveraging modernized teaching strategies to build best practices for teaching today's nursing students.