Curriculum Professional Development Research Articles

Personal and Professional Development (PPD) Facilitators’ Guide

OPEN ACCESSJanuary 23, 2007Personal and Professional Development (PPD) Facilitators’ Guide Kristi Ferguson, PhD, MSW Kristi Ferguson, PhD, MSW University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.167 SectionsAbout ToolsDownload Citations ShareFacebookTwitterEmail AbstractThis personal and professional development curriculum consists of 14 sessions, each 2 hours long. The aim is to make participants more competent, compassionate, and ethical clinicians. Topics covered include an introduction to personal and professional development, professionalism, the medical interview, the history of the present illness, understanding the social context of medicine, cultural competence in medicine, physician-patient communication, patient counseling, and handling death and dying/spirituality. The curriculum also contains a role-model session, interview sessions, and a service activity. The two sessions on balancing the demands of medical school with other aspects of student life both involve one-on-one interactions with simulated patients. These interviews are video recorded and made available for students to review and then discuss with their colleagues during the curriculum. The sessions on cultural competence in medicine and physician-patient communication involve having two simulated patients visit each group to give students additional practice with history taking related to specific situations. Discussion activities are provided for most sessions. The curriculum also includes written assignments to be completed by the students; feedback from facilitators and students is consistently very positive about this aspect of the course. Educational Objectives By the end of this resource, learners should be able to: Practice medicine in its sociocultural context.Continue self-directed learning in clinical practice.Apply relevant basic and clinical science to the practice of medicine. Sign up for the latest publications from MedEdPORTAL Add your email below FILES INCLUDEDReferencesRelatedDetails FILES INCLUDED Included in this publication: PPD Facilitator's Guide.doc To view all publication components, extract (i.e., unzip) them from the downloaded .zip file. Download editor’s noteThis publication may contain technology or a display format that is no longer in use. CitationFerguson K. Personal and Professional Development (PPD) Facilitators’ Guide. MedEdPORTAL. 2007;3:167. https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.167 Copyright & Permissions© 2007 Ferguson. This is an open-access publication distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike license.KeywordsPPDProfessional CompetenceAttitude to Death Disclosures None to report. Funding/Support None to report. Prior Presentations Ferguson KJ, Woodard VS. Personal and Professional Development: A Semester-long Small Group to Promote Social Support, Reflection, and Clinical Skills Development. Poster presented at: Association of American Medical Colleges Central Group on Educational Affairs Conference; 2004. Ferguson KJ, Woodard VS. Understanding the Patient's Perspective through Personal and Professional Development Group Discussion. Poster presented at: International Conference on Communication in Healthcare; October 2005; Chicago, IL. Loading ...

Teachers’ professional discretion and the curricula

At the heart of many current debates about curriculum and curriculum policy is an inadequately conceptualized and articulated notion of teachers’ professional discretion. This paper begins to detail a normative and descriptive theory of the social and individual conditions required for the development of professional discretion. A better understanding of teachers’ professional discretion should enable professional curriculum developers and policy writers to help teachers to adapt to the dynamic, complex social conditions of schooling.

Personal and Professional Development in Undergraduate Health Sciences Education

During the last decade, ''medical professionalism'' has been scrutinized as a consequence of pressures from within and outside the health sciences professions. In response, professional organizations have reviewed ethical principles and developed explicit guidelines for the behavior of their members. Medical educators have revised undergraduate curricula with a view to supporting the development and maintenance of these essential professional behaviors. This article outlines perspectives on professionalism before describing the evolution of personal and professional development curricula in undergraduate health science education. While the bulk of data on personal and professional development in the health sciences has come from human medicine, the principles are being recognized as applying to the breadth of the health professions. In the veterinary profession, the dyad of the physician-patient relationship of human medicine is expanded to the triad of the veterinarian-patient-client relationship, and this brings with it an added set of professional relationships and responsibilities. In order to be faithful to the primary literature and not expand beyond the various authors' data and conclusions, this article is presented principally in the terms of human medical education. For those in veterinary education, it is hoped that the inferences and applications will be readily apparent. In this article, challenges associated with defining content and educational methods are outlined, as well as selection criteria for medical school and promoting the value of PPD to students. Approaches to assessment, implementation, and evaluation of PPD curricula are also discussed. Two case studies are presented. The article concludes with suggestions for curriculum development.

Multicultural Citizenship Education: Case Studies from Social Studies Classrooms

Although multicultural citizenship education has been theorized as a goal of social studies, there is a paucity of empirical research to illustrate what actually occurs in diverse schools and classrooms. In this study, I explore two teachers' efforts to integrate multicultural content into the implemented social studies curriculum. Although the various lived experiences of both teachers predisposed them to integrating multicultural content in their social studies classes, the findings of this study indicate that the multicultural content covered in the implemented curriculum is limited and emerged mostly from the textbook. The findings of this study have implications for social studies teachers and professional development programs, curriculum supervisors, and school administrators as they work to improve multicultural citizenship education.

Professional development in undergraduate medical curricula--the key to the door of a new culture?

One of the most pressing requirements for contemporary medical education is to develop a framework for theory and practice of professional development which results in the attainment of professional competencies suitably robust for a lifetime's practice. The proposed content of a professional development curriculum may be reasonably straightforward to establish from policy documents and public expectations, but the process of achieving the desired outcomes is more complex, because professional development is largely based on attitudinal learning. Attitudes are at the interface between the personal and public psyche, relying more on individual experience and the accumulated impact of social and cultural interpretations than on propositional knowledge, and are therefore less amenable to factual or didactic teaching. The purpose of this discussion paper is to develop thinking on the conceptual frameworks which need to underpin curriculum decision-making for professional development, especially in undergraduate medical training where models of good practice are less well-established. It brings together work from educational, sociological and psychological perspectives to elucidate the key principles which are most likely to result in acquisition of desirable professional attributes. The literature suggests that successful professional development needs to be based on explicit values, which are repeatedly demonstrated in the learning environment, and modelled by senior colleagues and tutors; that the curriculum should incorporate a clear model of emotional as well as cognitive development; should be a major component of summative assessment; and needs to include formative mentorship at all stages of training.

Teaching about hepatitis C: a national survey of secondary school teachers

Issue addressed: Hepatitis C is a significant public health problem in Australia and it is essential that information about the virus and associated risks is provided to the community. A potential key target audience is secondary school students. If issues related to hepatitis C are to be taught in secondary schools, teachers need to be well informed and have the necessary resources. Methods: A survey research design was used to provide descriptive data on teachers' hepatitis C knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours via a self completion mail questionnaire. Health education and sex education teachers in all States and Territories were recruited. Results: These teachers reported that there was little being taught about hepatitis C in their schools and few of the teachers surveyed taught about this topic. Teachers were reasonably well informed, although there was evidence of conflating HIV and hepatitis C issues, and they believed that it was important for schools to include hepatitis C in the curriculum. Teachers reported that there were few opportunities for professional development and few appropriate curriculum resources to assist in teaching about hepatitis C. Barriers to including this issue in the curriculum were perceived to be structural. Conclusions: Among this sample of teachers there is recognition of public health concerns about hepatitis C and the need for prevention education for young people. There is also a willingness on their part to support the inclusion of hepatitis C in the curriculum. So what?: Mechanisms need to be put in place in schools to assist teachers in teaching about hepatitis C. These include providing appropriate professional development and curriculum resources, as well as giving consideration to the most appropriate place in the curriculum for hepatitis C prevention education. (author abstract)

Curriculum Professional Development: for Training or Professionalism?

Curriculum Professional Development: for Training or Professionalism?

Evaluation approaches and results in curriculum research and development in The Netherlands

Curriculum evaluation is a many-sided concept. It links two comprehensive and well-established domains in the field of education, which is illustrated by the fact that each has its own separate volume of The International Encyclopedia of Education (Lewy, 1990; Walberg & Haertel, 1990). The many sides of curriculum evaluation are also reflected by the multitude of curriculum evaluation models presented in the literature (see Alkin, 1994, for a recent overview). This review article on curriculum evaluation in The Netherlands will focus on evaluation approaches and results in both curriculum research and professional curriculum development practices. Since both constitutive domains, “curriculum” and “evaluation”, are somewhat notorious for their elusiveness and the gap between rhetoric and reality, special attention will be paid to the user perspective of curriculum evaluation. Curriculum evaluation in The Netherlands was reviewed about a decade ago in a special issue of this journal (Verloop & Creemers, 1984), in an article by Creemers and Terlouw (1984). Therefore we will concentrate our analysis on more recent trends and findings. We will refrain from dealing extensively with general, less curriculum-specific forms of educational evaluation, like large-scale (inter)national assessment studies of student achievements (see Hoeben, this issue). However, we will broaden the curriculum scope by including evaluation of less traditional objects and contexts, e.g., evaluation of courseware, and evaluation of training in business and industry. The review starts with a brief description of the organizational scenery of curriculum evaluation in The Netherlands, distinguishing various aims and contexts of evaluation. Next, we will provide an overview of curriculum evaluation research in the last decade, discussing the methods and outcomes of these studies. In this overview we will distinguish between evaluation research on products from generic curriculum development projects and evaluative findings from other curriculum research. Then, we will pay attention to evaluation practices in different professional development contexts. The article will close with some discussion on recent trends and future challenges for curriculum evaluation.

Science Instruction at the Secondary Level: Implications for Students with Learning Disabilities

Designing appropriate content area instruction for secondary students with learning disabilities is a challenging endeavor. Even if these students are mainstreamed into algebra, history, or science classes, special educators are likely to expect only a minimal grasp of the material. To go beyond this, to teach higher order thinking through these subjects, would be regarded by most practitioners as too labor-intensive. The authors of this article argue that, through a comprehensive revision of traditional materials, secondary students with learning disabilities can learn content area subjects--earth science and introductory chemistry, particularly--in an integrated manner. These students can achieve a firm understanding of the subject, as well as learn how to solve complex, domain-specific problems. For this kind of integrated instruction to be feasible, the curriculum must be designed and field-tested by professional curriculum developers.