Curriculum Task Force Research Articles

Using problem-based learning in neurosciences education for medical students.

A Curriculum Task Force proposed problem-based learning as one important educational strategy and recommended changes to a traditional medical curriculum. This paper describes how a problem-based learning course in neurosciences was developed and has evolved since its inception in the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine. The curriculum planning and design phases are outlined, followed by a description of how the course has been implemented and evaluated. Program evaluation results are presented, describing student performance on examinations and their feedback about the course. The authors summarize lessons learned and identify future issues to continue the ongoing development of the course.

Using a Performance Improvement Team to Reinvent a Mandatory Education Program

To improve employee attendance at Annual Review Day, the day when all mandatory hospitalwide education requirements are presented. The Finley Hospital (Dubuque, Iowa) initiated a performance improvement team in March 1993. Data collected previous to 1993 indicated that the compliance goal of 90% was being met only with difficulty. Data indicated three main areas where improvements could be made-communication, enforcement, and curriculum. Recommendations of task forces, with team members as leaders, were implemented. Decisions were made to change Annual Review Day to a full-day format to include all mandatory education, make outcomes competency based, and maintain cost-effectiveness. The one-year trial run began in 1994 with gradual changes in the program from a lecture and video format to an interactive game format. For example, at one point a crossword puzzle with information on infection control and bloodborne pathogens was added. The Jeopardy Game format, used to teach the principles of emergency preparedness, was added in June 1994. Full implementation of the curriculum, communication, and enforcement recommendations have resulted in 100% compliance. The performance improvement team has continued to monitor results and submit quarterly reports to the quality management department. All participants must complete and pass a competency-based test on the information covered; all 760 participants have passed. The curriculum task force continues to meet on a yearly basis to evaluate the ever-evolving format, analyze attendee evaluations, and consider annual changes to the format.

Bringing Learning to Life: The Use of Poetry in the Integrated Curriculum

There is much support nationwide for reforming the middle school curriculum by making it more thematic, integrated, and relevant to real life needs. The assembly of discrete, sequential content offerings has given way to an emphasis on demonstrating how knowledge from different fields is related and how this knowledge can be translated to the world outside the classroom (Curriculum Task Force, 1993). At last, the notion of bringing learning to life is an accepted and a preferred mode of instructional design. As a result, this column will show how curricular integra tion, with its focus on lifelong learning, can be accom plished through the use of poetry. To paraphrase Ellenwood and McLaren (1994), good [poetry] litera ture, like life is not only complex, it is thoroughly inter disciplinary (p. 46). In the integrated curriculum, poetry can be used to introduce themes, bring attention to critical issues relat ed to the theme or the novel used, or to offer alternative perspectives. Students can also be encouraged to write poetry in response to novels, themes, and issues within an integrated unit. poetry becomes a natural part of the integrated unit, students will be more apt to understand poetry as a natural part of their lives. The significance of an integrated curriculum is that it allows teachers to organize curriculum around themes, problems, or essential questions that students find more engaging than traditional, discipline bound instruction. Critical to an integrated curriculum is finding ways to make learning relevant to students' lives. As human beings, we do not live or experience life according to fragmented subject areas. Life itself is integrated. Brain research supports this notion of integration in revealing that one key function of the brain is to search for com mon patterns and relationships (Caine & Caine, 1994). the curriculum is divided artificially into disci plines, making those connections that lead to meaning ful learning is more difficult. New information becomes meaningful when it is packaged in relevant, complex, and highly social interactive experiences (p. 43). Emotion is also an essential in learning. Concepts and memories are tied to emotion, giving a sense of real ity to what we do and think (Caine & Caine, 1994). Connections can be made when the subject is personal ly meaningful. When we ignore the emotional compo nents of any subject we teach, we actually deprive stu dents of meaningfulness (p. 58). Often, examples of integrated units include, or are based on, novels. Using literature as a vehicle of integra tion is supported by research. Studies have revealed that students who read more become better readers and that teachers need to place a high value on reading by pro viding opportunities for students to engage in reading for information and pleasure (Templeton, 1991). Thus, the result of using literature as a starting point to cut across curricular lines is a natural one. Using poetiy to introduce and support exploration in integrated units provides a connecting thread from issues, information, and emotions to the lives of our students.

Undergraduate AI and its non-imperative prerequisite

This position paper presents, we believe, a strong case for including in an undergraduate Computer Science (CS) program a required course in non-imperative programming. Such a course is motivated by the need to provide a uniform and adequate background for a course in Artificial Intelligence (AI). We make no claim about graduate AI courses. We survey the recommendations of the ACM-IEEE Joint Curriculum Task Force for an undergraduate course in AI and argue that some of the "dilemmas" of teaching introductory AI courses can be resolved by changes in the core CS curriculum. The argument for such a course is the focus of the paper; we also offer some ancillary remarks on other matters relating to teaching AI at the introductory level.

Information systems curriculum—a status report

This paper provides a status report of the joint curriculum task force effort to develop a new model curriculum for undergraduate programs in Information Systems. The curriculum work is the first collaborative effort between ACM, AIS and DPMA. After a brief description of the background and current task force activities are presented, the recommended courses are briefly listed and described.

Middle School Students' Perceptions of Integrated Curriculum

level students revolving around themes that provide practice in life skills such as reflec tive thinking, problem solving, valuing, and social action. The National Middle School Association's Curriculum Task Force in its initial position paper (1993) supports learn ing experiences which are integrated, address students' own questions, and focus upon enduring issues and ideas, and active ly engage students in problem solving and a variety of experimental learning opportuni ties.

Information systems '95 curriculum model

This paper provides a progress report of the joint curriculum task force effort to develop a new model curriculum for undergraduate programs in Information Systems. The curriculum work is the first collaborative effort between ACM and other professional societies associated with information systems education. The paper presents a brief background description, current task force activities, list of recommended courses and course description, and other addressed curricula related issues.

CSI closed lab vs. open lab experiment

Recommendations of the ACM/IEEE Joint Curriculum Task Force on the Core of Computer Science and the dissatisfaction with the poor performance of too many CS1 students at Middle Tennessee State University combined to motivate the Computer Science Department to compare the use of closed labs and open labs. A controlled experiment was conducted in the Fall 1992 and Spring 1993 semester of CS1 classes. Some of these classes were chosen for closed lab and others for open lab experiences. ANOVAs of various comparison groups consistently showed significant differences on comprehensive CS1 exams in favor of the students in closed labs.

Attributes of Engineering Graduates and Their Impact on Curriculum Design

AbstractThis paper presents the findings of an Engineering Curriculum Task Force of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Arizona State University. The Task Force's charge was to explore changes that would better prepare baccalaureate‐level engineers for the practice of their profession in the next decade. The generic data developed in the process used by the Task Force are given here. For example, a set of ten important attributes deemed desirable for newly graduated engineers and produced by education, is presented. Also, the rankings by industry, alumni, students, and faculty, of the relative importance of each of these ten attributes and the performance of new graduates in each, are given. Generic curriculum features necessary for successful generation of these attributes are discussed. Finally, the results of an alumni survey are presented which show the overwhelming support for a broad‐based undergraduate program by graduates of all degree programs.

Computer graphics in Computing Curriculum 1991

Computer graphics has not been treated as an important subject in computer science curriculum recommendations throughout the history of the ACM curriculum recommendations. A new report from the current ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force, entitled "Computing Curricula 1991" [6], is intended to provide curriculum recommendations for baccalaureate programs in areas of computing encompassed by ACM and IEEE-CS, replacing such recommendations as Curriculum 78 [2] and the 1983 IEEE-CS model program [4]. How does computer graphics fare in this report, and what are the implications of the report for computer graphics developments in computing curricula?Overall, computer graphics comes out fairly well in these recommendations. The report specifically recommends both computer graphics and human-cemputer interaction topics in the core curriculum. This partially reflects the Ohlson recommendations from SIGGRAPH's Education Committee [5] and is vastly better than Curriculum 78, which ignored computer graphics almost entirely. However, as we shall see, the core content of computer graphics and human-computer interaction is quite weak, and the Task Force seems to have had some question about how they should be worked into core courses. Advanced courses in both computer graphics and human-computer interaction are also explicitly suggested in the report. A description of a very standard elective computer graphics course is included in the report. The report concludes with summaries of some sample curricula, and the elective computer graphics course is listed in most of them. However, none of these include the human-computer interaction elective.

Creating a new model curriculum: A rationale for Computing curricula 1990

The Joint Curriculum Task Force of the acm and the ieee Computer Society has proposed a new flexible collection of curricula which provides the basis for broad-based undergraduate computing programs. In order to have the curricula applicable to as many types of undergraduate institutions as possible, the curricula have been designed around a collection of “knowledge units” which can be put together in a variety of ways to form a coherent set of courses leading to a major in computing. In order to help provide connections between these knowledge units, the task force has also identified a number of “recurring concepts” which tie together seemingly disparate parts of the curriculum. The purpose of this article is to provide an informal discussion of the considerations that went into the creation of these curricular guidelines, and provide insight into the reasons behind many of the decisions that were made.

Confusions Concerning Sleep Disorders and the Epilepsies in Children and Adolescents

There are interesting parallels between sleep disorders and the epilepsies. Firstly, both terms refer to a group of conditions differing in cause, clinical manifestation, natural history and impact on the lives of patients and their relatives. Secondly, the investigation and management of both sets of conditions require a combined physical and psychological approach. Thirdly, neither field is usually covered systematically (if at all) in medical education, although some initiative has been taken in the USA for the introduction of these areas into the curriculum of medical schools (Medical School Curriculum Task Force, 1988). This relative neglect no doubt explains the fourth parallel – that in both sleep disorders and the epilepsies misdiagnosis or inadequate diagnosis appears to be common.

Infection control curriculum task force

Infection control curriculum task force

Recommended curriculum for CS2, 1984

A Report of the ACM Curriculum Task Force for CS2

A Model Advanced Electric Power Engineering Curriculum Task Force on Electric Power Engineering Curricula to the Power Engineering Education Committee

A Model Advanced Electric Power Engineering Curriculum Task Force on Electric Power Engineering Curricula to the Power Engineering Education Committee

Cardiac Preceptor Model: Access to Learning by Nurses in Rural Communities

This article describes how faculty at the University of North Carolina along with extensive statewide nursing input by a Cardiovascular Curriculum Task Force dealt with the issues of access to Cardiac Care Educational Courses and availability of qualified cardiac instructor-preceptors in rural communities of North Carolina. The Cardiac Preceptor Model expanded resource in education and practice by the creation of a cardiac preceptor network in the rural areas of the stale. During one-year follow-up of the first class of cardiac preceptors, approximately 276 nurses were educated by 10 nurse preceptors. As more cardiac preceptors were educated, the number of nurses prepared in cardiac care continued to increase. Mobility of cardiac preceptors was enhanced because they received similar educational background based on standardized content in curriculum prepared by the Cardiovascular Curriculum Task Force.