Transformative Curriculum Design

This chapter discusses the principles of transformative curriculum design to include: curriculum models, objective outcome creation, scaffolding of curriculum, curriculum mapping, linkage of assessment to objectives and objectives to program outcomes, program evaluation and strategies for curriculum design including technology. In addition, some recent best practices in health program curriculum design are presented as well as emerging models. Last, some specific designs related to health sciences curriculum and programs are presented.

Technology in Transformative Learning Environments

Health science educators are increasingly bombarded with proposals to integrate instructional technology into the curriculum to enhance learning. While it may be that providing more options for delivering instruction in different formats provide instructional benefit for educators, the unique nature and goals of health science education require a systematic and integrative approach when instructional technology is introduced into the curriculum. Providing support for transformative learning pedagogies and high-level learning that assists students in developing a reflective professional identity should be a major goal of instructional technology adoption. This chapter develops a framework that health care educators can use to guide the integration of instructional technology in a manner that provides instructional affordances for transformative learning and supports instruction that produces reflective practitioners.

Problem-Based Learning in Transformative Nursing Education

The purpose of this chapter is to identify the components and the use of problem-based learning in a transformative nursing education environment. A problem-based learning environment provides adult learners the opportunity to work through realistic problems they may encounter in their clinical environment. Through the use of ill-defined problems, adult learners identify what is known, what is not known, and what needs to be known in order to solve problems. In this style of education, adult learners build upon their own knowledge base in order to solve these problems. This type of learning environment places educators in a unique position to assess the problem solving and critical thinking skills of students and provide feedback as needed.

Transformative Learning in Osteopathic Medical Education

Osteopathic medical education has undergone a transformation in the past century. From the work of Abraham Flexner to present, many lessons have been learned. Today the education of physicians relies on best practices from adult learning theory to allow learners to master the ever expanding biomedical knowledge and skill base needed for competency. Learners are expected to maintain active knowledge of a vast array of facts, be proficient at clinical skills and adapt this knowledge seamlessly to the varied situations they confront with patients. This chapter reviews the past, examines the present and envisions the future, noting how transformative learning is essential to medical training.

Building Soul and Measuring Flow in the Learning Environment

For effective learning to occur, a culture must be created that connects the students to the teacher, to each other and to the content. Faculty must use social capital to meet and exceed learning outcomes. The benefits of creating a sense of soul in the classroom so that flow can occur is the most important ingredient in ensuring success in the learning environment. Collectively the synergy of the course, the type and amount of learning and the type of community built in the learning environment can create a healthy or toxic environment. Academic and nonacademic indicators must be incorporated into the measurement of excellence in the learning environment because these strategies are required to be competitive in the job market and because it is the right thing to do. Strategies to support a global perspective through venues of economic, psychological, social and human capital towards a greater good are provided in this chapter.

A Longitudinal Study of Facilitating Medical Students' Stepwise Transformation to Distance Learners

This chapter focuses on medical students' experiences in transforming from face-to-face to distance learners in a Swedish regionalized medical program (RMP). One group of students (n=100) were followed during six semesters through surveys, log data, observations, and in-depth interviews. A research model built on the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), including the notion of dominant and non-dominant activities, was used in order to identify factors that influence students' stepwise transformation from face-to-face to distance learners. The analysis contains the investigation of pedagogical, institutional, and historically grounded conflicts that seem to inhibit medical students from making a complete transformation to distance learners. By going deeper into the analysis of transitional actions, which seems to help in solving conflicts, the chapter discusses implications to facilitating medical students' future transformation from face-to-face to distance learners. These implications are examples of curriculum redesigns, such as new educational designs and integration of technology and pedagogy in the curriculum.

Curriculum Design for Interprofessional Education in the Preclinical Health Sciences

This chapter focuses on interprofessional education (IPE) from the perspective of the preclinical health sciences - the time before learners practice the skills of real world clinical care. IPE allows students from varying healthcare arenas (including medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, etc.) to collaborate, communicate, as well as nurture medical values to ultimately improve care. The IPE literature is quite extensive. National organizations, competency models, and educational theory promote the integration of IPE into the curriculum across all years of education. This chapter reviews the history of IPE within U.S. medical schools, competency frameworks from a global perspective, and the theoretical foundations of IPE. In addition, strategies for implementing IPE in the preclinical years, including teaching methods, learner assessment, examples, and curricular design tips are provided.

Pedagogy, Andragogy, and Heutagogy

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the theoretical foundations of pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy. A brief description of the most common pedagogical theories, cognitivism, constructionism and behaviorism, as well as emerging theories such as social pedagogy, Pedagogy 2.0 and Education 3.0 are discussed. In addition, the tenets of andragogy, including its linkages to transformative education are presented. Heutagogy, which is self-determined learning, is also presented. This chapter also provides a discussion of whether pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy are on a continuum or can be exhibited at any time during the educational experience, particularly with the advent of more advanced educational technologies.

Transformative Learning

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a theoretical as well as practical overview of transformative learning and how this theory applies to both faculty and students. Transformative learning (TL) is the stage where the educational process becomes more than just a transfer of knowledge; it becomes authentic, true learning. TL is reflective, experiential, student-centered and requires self-directive learners and faculty who are willing to provide meaningful, relevant, problem-based assessment and use a variety of teaching methods. The major tenets of transformational learning and how it applies to learning and curriculum are also discussed in this chapter.

A User Friendly Guide to Successful Implementation of Care Mapping

The goal of care mapping in the clinical setting in undergraduate nursing education is to determine the student's ability to collect, present, and connect relevant data points in order to evaluate and understand the medical plan of care and to develop a priority based nursing plan of care. This same process can be utilized across all health science education programs. The purpose of this chapter is to share how the author has modified the traditional concept map tool to a more user friendly format and to present a process of implementation that may be used in the clinical setting as part of any undergraduate health science program. The benefits of such an implementation are that of more enriched learning to include the development of critical thinking skills, the use of a common sense approach, and the recognition of the patient as a holistic being.