Curriculum development module - Faculty Development - London ...

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• References • Further reading Introduction This paper is designed to provide clinical teachers with some of the background theory relating to curriculum design and course development, highlighting some of the main approaches and recent trends in medical and healthcare education. This paper is designed to be studied alongside Teaching and Learning in the clinical context. As with most activities in education, curriculum development is not carried out in isolation from other activities, but is part of an iterative planning, development, implementation and review cycle. It should be noted that the term can be used to describe development at different levels: large-scale curricular reform (eg. the national review of undergraduate medical education which was carried out by all UK medical schools between 1993 – 1996 or the introduction of the Foundation curriculum), modification of existing programmes or making simple changes to one’s own lessons. However, the same principles apply in a range of contexts and to both large and small-scale activities. Some forms of educational development include curriculum development although usually educational development refers to any kind of development activity in an educational context. Curriculum development – an introduction The word curriculum derives from the Latin currere meaning ‘to run’. This implies that one of the functions of a curriculum is to provide a template or design which enables learning to take place. Curricula usually define the learning that is expected to take place during a course or programme of study in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes, they should specify the main teaching, learning and assessment methods and provide an indication of the learning resources required to support the effective delivery of the course. A curriculum is more than a syllabus. A syllabus describes the content of a programme and can be seen as one part of a curriculum. Most curricula are not developed from scratch and all operate within organisational and societal constraints. The curriculum that is written and published, for example as course documentation, is the official or formal curriculum. The aim of educational development is to ensure that the official curriculum is delivered as the functional curriculum and there is not a mismatch as development turns into implementation. The official curriculum can also be distinguished from the hidden, unofficial or counter curriculum. Paul Willis’ work on the sociology of schooling for example describes how the informal pupil group comprising working class ‘lads’ has its own sub-culture and counter curriculum which involves ‘mucking about’, ‘doing nothing’ and ‘having a laff’ (Willis, 1977, pp62-63). The hidden curriculum describes those aspects of the educational environment and student learning (such as values and expectations that students acquire as a result of going through an educational process) which are not formally or explicitly stated but which relate to the culture and ethos of an organisation. This highlights that the process of learning is as important as its product and as teachers we need to be aware of both the formal and informal factors which impact on learning.
Further reading If you are interested in the anthropological or sociological aspects which underpin learning in medical education then you may find reading two very different accounts of medical school training fascinating. The classic study of medical undergraduates is Howard Becker et al’s Boys in White (1961) and for a more recent study Simon Sinclair’s book Making doctors: an institutional apprenticeship (1997) is an account of undergraduate medical education at University College London (UCL). It covers aspects of ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ life in medical school, focussing on the acquisition and transmission of knowledge, power and hierarchy, gender and race issues and how the students deal with the curriculum and their various clinical experiences. Learning activity and reflection Thinking about your undergraduate education, can you list some examples of the formal curriculum? And some examples of the hidden or unofficial curriculum? Are there any instances where these may conflict and impact on learning? My thoughts Some examples of the formal curriculum might include the prospectus, course guides, lecturers handouts etc. And of the unofficial curriculum might include Freshers’ week, rugby and other sports clubs and events, treating female or Asian students differently, the different ‘tribes and territories’ found in different specialties eg. surgery or general practice Conflicts and impact on learning might include examples where drinking the night before means that students come into teaching sessions late (or not at all in the morning), some teachers regularly time the first teaching session at 0930 because they know that if they start teaching earlier, then few students will be there.
Page 1: Curriculum design and development A
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Page 9 and 10: should be designed with a variety o
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Page 15 and 16: oundaries. Teaching units from subj
Page 17 and 18: Assessments such as OSCEs (Objectiv
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Page 29 and 30: References Becker, H.S., Geer, B.,
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