Curriculum Planning (P00987)

? Credit Points : 10 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : MED-P-P00987

This course will encompass the issues around curriculum planning, particularly with respect to:
Policy and practice
- What is a Doctor?
- Recommendations and guidelines with international status, examples include the World Health Organisation, the World Federation for Medical Education.
- Recommendations and guidelines at national level, examples include the General Medical Council, Royal Colleges, 'Scottish Doctor Project' and government agencies.
- Influence of curricula from other nations for example, USA, Europe and Australia and particular medical schools, for example, McMaster, Maastricht, Newcastle NSW.

Educational philosophy
- Establishing aims and outcomes, learning and assessment objectives; competence.
- The nature of knowledge and the balance between pre-clinical and clinical courses; the notion of clinical integration and the clinical context.
- The conflict between Medical Education and Medical training.
- The notions of constructive alignment; sequence and progression.
- The tension between transmission of knowledge through formal teaching and self-directed learning.
- The nature of assessment in relation to ethos, institutional standards and student performance.
- Curriculum models: Systems based, Problem based, Flexner's legacy.

Management and resources
- Change theory: particularly in relation to early stages of change, drivers for change, authority for change, strategies, climate building; team building and management by objectives.
- Issues pertinent to time, staff, space, physical resources and expenditure.
- Project planning techniques, such as force field analysis, task analysis, project management.
- Managing tensions between aspiration and actuality.

Practical application
- Case studies of designs of whole courses and course components.

Entry Requirements

none

Subject Areas

Home subject area

Medical Education, (Medicine, Schedule R)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : To be arranged/Unknown

? Contact Teaching Time : 9 hour(s) per week for 4 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module the student will be able to:
- Discuss the relevant literature about curriculum planning and design in terms of recommendation, educational philosophy and management issues.
- Design a curriculum, or one of its components, with reference to established curricula in other medical schools.
- Conduct a case study into curriculum design.

Assessment Information

The course will be assessed by one piece of coursework. This will amount to 100% of the assessment. The participants will be given a curriculum to analyse. They will do this as a group activity. Individual participants will be asked to design a short course or module that 'fits into' the example curriculum provided.