Category: Curriculum
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Open, online course on Professional Ethics
I’ve been wanting to run an open, online course for a while and have finally managed to put something together in collaboration with Physiopedia. I’m interested in exploring new conceptions of curriculum and what it means to teachers and learners when we do something different. How would learning change if the learners decided on the…
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“Design” and “Evolution” in curriculum development
Awesome quote from Linus Torvalds (creator of the Linux kernel) on the difference between evolution and design. Don’t ever make the mistake [of thinking] that you can design something better than what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a feedback cycle. That’s giving your intelligence much too much credit. For implementing the module that I…
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Objectifying students in the same way we objectify patients
What is it about the way we teach that sets up behaviours in our students for the way that they practice? I noticed that many of our students don’t consciously think of their patients as fully human beings. I don’t think it’s intentional, or that they’re disrespecting the patients…they just don’t think of them as…
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Is violence in society decreasing over time?
This weekend I came across an interesting TED talk by Steven Pinker, where he identifies a decreasing trend in violence, which is somewhat surprising when you think about how violent the world is. He supports the idea with some examples which seem reasonable, although some of the comments highlight that the evidence seems to have…
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Content isn’t important, relative to thinking
I just had a brief conversation with a colleague on the nature of the teaching method we’re using in my department. Earlier this year we shifted from a methodology premised on lectures, to the use of case-based learning. I’ve been saying for a while that content is not important, but I’ve realised that I haven’t…
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UWC “Scholarship of teaching and learning” colloquium
I presented at the UWC scholarship of teaching and learning colloquium last week. Here is the presentation I gave, which is essentially a progress report of my PhD research project. I posted my own presentation a few days ago and here are the notes I took during the colloquium. Can universities be caring? A meditation…
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Peer review of teaching
Introduction Peer review is a form of evaluation designed to provide feedback to teachers about their professional practice. The standard method of evaluating teaching is to ask students at the end of a module or course, for their feedback on the lecturers performance. While student feedback does have value, it also has limitations. For example,…
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Developing case studies for holistic clinical education
This is quite a long post. Basically I’ve been trying to situate my current research into a larger curriculum development project and this post is just a reflection of my progress so far. It’s probably going to have big gaps and be unclear in sections. I’m OK with that. Earlier this week our department had…
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Graphically representing a curriculum
I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog lately, owing to the fact that I’ve been putting a lot of time into the next phase of my PhD. This post is in part an attempt to summarise and try to make sense of what’s going on there, as well as to assuage my feeling of…
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TEDxStellenbosch: designing spaces
A few months ago I attended TEDxStellenbosch at Spier wine farm near Stellenbosch. It was one of the better TEDx events I’ve been to during past few years and I enjoyed it immensely. During the day I re-tweeted comments from other participants, mainly as a record of speakers and the comments that resonated with me.…
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Problem based learning: transitioning to an online / hybrid learning environment
A few weeks ago I attended a short presentation by Prof. Meena Iyer from Missouri University. Prof. Iyer spoke about how she moved her PBL module from using a traditional, mainly face-to-face approach, to an online / hybrid approach. Here are my notes. —————————- “All life is problem solving” – Karl Popper How do we…
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The role of clinicians in student assessment
A few weeks ago I was at a workshop attended mainly by clinicians who are involved in student supervision. One of the questions asked was about the role of clinicians in student assessment. I thought it was worth writing a short note about the general feeling in the room, and my own thoughts on the…
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Peer review of teaching activities
Last year at our planning meeting we decided to integrate peer review of teaching activities during 2011 as part of our departmental plan to engage with a scholarship of teaching and learning. A few of us developed a peer review form based on a few examples we found online and then submitted the form to…
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Introducing the OSPE format to physiotherapy practicals
Last year at our planning meeting (every year we meet to review the year and to plan for the upcoming one) we committed to conducting all of our practicals from now on in the OSPE format (Objective Structured Practical Examination). This format has the advantages of having all students perform the same assessment tasks, as…
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SAFRI 2011 (session 2) – day 4
Reliability and validity Validity Important for assessment, not only for research It’s the scores that are valid and reliable, not the instrument Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of the parts e.g. when a student gets all the check marks but doesn’t perform competently overall e.g. the examiner can tick each competency being…
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SAFRI 2011 (session 2) – day 3
Began today with a session on workplace-based learning, spent some time “developing a model” for learning a new skill after actually trying to learn (what was for many) a new skill…spinning a top. My group came up with the following model which, truth be told was obviously based on Kolb’s learning cycle. Reviewed educational model…
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SAFRI 2011 (session 2) – day 2
“Teach” a group of colleagues about “Assessment”. Here are some notes I took in preparation for a 5 minute teaching session What is assessment? “Defines for students what is important, what counts, how they will spend their times and how they will see themselves as learners. If you want to change student learning, then change…