Humanities Curriculum Research Articles

Is community-based electrocardiography education feasible in the early phase of an undergraduate medical curriculum?

Accreditation authorities expect medical schools to increase their teaching standards and civic engagement, despite limited resources. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of community-based (CB) electrocardiography (ECG) instruction in semesters 4 and/or 5 of the undergraduate MBChB programme at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. A literature review and 34 structured interviews were employed, using a mixed-methods QUAN (+qual) research design. Regarding the preclinical phase, 18 interviewees strongly supported community-based learning (CBL) and 21 strongly supported task-based (TB) CBL. Responses were more conservative regarding the practicability of TB CBL. Twenty-two interviewees supported preclinical phase ECG-specific CBL. There was more support for implementing CB ECG in the clinical phase than in the preclinical phase. Challenges identified included finances, transport, personnel availability, clinic space, curriculum time constraints, student and driver absenteeism, and ethical aspects. Solutions for the preclinical phase included combining electrocardiography with other CBL tasks. Many interviewees supported preclinical phase TB CBL, although several factors determine its feasibility. Availability of human and other resources and curriculum time significantly impact CB ECG learning. Solutions necessitate additional location-specific research.

Tuning history

The Tuning educational project for history has its supporters and its detractors. This overview of the articles contained in this special issue of the journal reflects on some of the complexities of implementing such an ambitious global project and the local and national priorities that have made the process both stimulating and challenging for those involved. And it argues that while lists of competences constitute valuable reference points for discussion of the arts and humanities curriculum in an international context, they should be seen as the starting point for a more detailed and broad-ranging set of global conversations about how we (should) teach our subjects and why this matters for students in today’s world.

What Pauline Doesn\u2019t Know: Using Guided Fiction Writing to Educate Health Professionals about Cultural Competence

Research linking reading literary fiction to empathy supports health humanities programs in which reflective writing accompanies close readings of texts, both to explore principles of storytelling (narrative arc and concrete language) and to promote an examination of biases in care. Little attention has been paid to the possible contribution of guided fiction-writing in health humanities curricula toward enhancing cultural competence among health professionals, both clinical and community-based. Through an analysis of the short story “Pie Dance” by Molly Giles, juxtaposed with descriptions of specific writing exercises, this paper explains how the demands of writing fiction promote cultural competency.

U źródeł Uniwersytetu Latającego i Towarzystwa Kursów Naukowych

The Origins of the Flying University and the Society of Scientific Courses Since the beginning of 1977 groups of students begun to participate in courses organized outside the official educational institutions. This was due to the censorship of official university curricula in humanities and social sciences, especially in literature, history, philosophy, sociology and economy. At the beginning the unofficial courses were organized within the network of academic ministry. The Flying University started its operation in the spring of 1977 in Krakow and in the autumn that year in Warsaw by organizing public lectures and seminars in private apartments. On January 22nd 1978 several outstanding Polish scientists signed The Founding Declaration of the Society of Scientific Courses. The main goals of the initiative – which remained unrecognized by authorities – was not only to organize and patronize independent teaching, but also to grant scholarships and to publish books in samizdat. The activities of the Society were backed by the Catholic Church, but the communist authorities tried to suppress them. The author of the paper describes the circumstances in which both the Flying University and the Society of Scientific Courses were organized.

Creating Artists and Citizens: Teaching Community through an Arts-Based Mentoring Program

This article describes a community-based arts and humanities mentoring program linking undergraduate students with children from underresourced communities. The authors argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the arts can provide liberal arts students with a community engagement experience that teaches citizenship and community. This type of program could serve as a model for an integration of the humanities curriculum and service learning, which in effect creates a practice of critical pedagogy—a practice often used in professional schools but left out of liberal arts text-oriented curricula.

Nilai-Nilai Karakter dalam Kurikulum Humanistik di FITK IAIN Surakarta

This research was conducted to find the values of the character in curriculum based Humanistic. Humanistic curriculum is a model curriculum with emphasis on student-centered learning. By way of this curriculum, educationcan return to its original role and function, which is to increase human dignity and. The catagory ofthis research is leterary and took place in FITK (Faculty of Education), IAIN (State Islamic Institut). The data of research were handouts and reference books that used by lecturers of humanistic-based subjects. The results of this research are: 1) the majority of the subject materials based on humanistic in FITK contains muchcharacter values, such as: love peace, tolerance, empathy, solidarity, asceticism, sincere and so on; 3) in addition, character values are also internalized through a learning process; 3) The values of character that nothing comes from the teachings of Islam, philosophy and civilization of community.Keywords: Character Values, Humanistic Curriculum.

Coaching in organisations: how the use of fictional characters can develop coaching practice

Purpose This paper consists of a case study that reports on a pedagogical intervention undertaken among a group of postgraduate students in the area of coaching. The purpose of this paper is to design an intervention to bridge the gulf between coaching theory and practice, a gap identified by coaching research and corroborated by professional practice students on the university course examined here. Design/methodology/approach The study gives an account of how literary fiction was used with a cohort of students as a source of hypothetical scenarios used to simulate workplace problems and as a simulative context in which coaching students could apply theoretical models to make-believe scenarios. In this case study, the author evaluates the success of this innovative pedagogical methodology based on a qualitative analysis of excerpts from students’ written work. Findings The author advocates the use of literary fictional texts as a means of enhancing coach training and makes a case for the benefits of exposing students to literary fiction as part of a rich humanities curriculum. Reading about how fictional characters negotiate the terrain of life and work can help coaching students to create stronger, more creative narratives in their work-based projects. Originality/value Exploring how fictional characters respond to challenges in the workplace (and in life generally) will support students to formulate their own coaching interventions in a more coherent fashion. The paper contends that stories are the cornerstone of learning, and that educators can support students to explore issues of core identity, (in)coherent life themes and narrative representation in students’ professional practice by getting them to read fiction.

KURIKULUM HUMANISTIK DAN PENDIDIKAN KARAKTER: SEBUAH GAGASAN PENGEMBANGAN KURIKULUM MASA DEPAN

<div style="text-align: JUSTIFY;"><p>Humanistic curriculum gives rise to the coverage of need of self-actualization of the students so as to develop and to build integrity. The social reconstructionists suggests that social needs are available in any individual interest. The obligation of a curriculum is to generate the better future through a social reformation. Social values and their application should be accommodated in critical thinking process framed by a curriculum; in the way that curriculum has become the best vehicle for the students to develop their skill in grasping with the learning materials, understanding the personal and local problems. Personality, social values, thinking skill, problem solving skill can be all developed altogether through a curriculum – which in return can bring about the better future of human nature.</p></div>

Religiusitas Manajemen dalam Peningkatan Profesionalitas Guru

This paper is intended to describe how religiosity management in improving the professionalism of teachers. Religiosity is not synonymous with religion. It should be a religious person it is at once a religious person, too. But a lot happens, the adherents of a religion that is persistent, but with a motivated or career advancement. Educational institutions require professional management in order to provide education to walk dynamically, competetif, and productive. This is done for education in the process should lead to the approach to God and human perfection, directing people to achieve his life goal is a happy afterlife. Management includes planning, execution, control, and monitoring of the (human resources, learning resources, curriculum, funding and facilities) to achieve educational goals effectively and efficiently. Educational planning has an important role and are at an early stage in the process of education management, which serve as a guide for implementation, control, and supervision of education. The essence of planning is a decision-making process that is systematic, relating to future plans, and to achieve certain desired objectives. And to overcome the limitations of the ability, willingness, and its resources in achieving educational goals needed organizing in education. Implementing an educational institution is the key of success of an educational institution. Teachers as professional educators have a good image in the community if it can demonstrate to the public that he is worthy of being a role model or example of the surrounding community. Teacher behavior patterns associated with it will be discussed in accordance with the objectives, namely the teachers' professional attitude towards laws and regulations, professional organizations, colleagues, students, work place, leadership, and work. A teacher not only reflects a profession, but a representation of different positions which is very noble. Teacher is a hero selfless, unsung hero, a hero of science, goodness hero, heroes education, human builders, the builders of civilization, culture bearer, piorir, reformer and reliable, and etc.

Developing a Pilot Curriculum to Foster Humanism in Graduate Medical Education

Local Mentor: Alice Chuang, MD APGO Advisors: Sonya Erickson MD, and Jody Steinauer, MD, MAS PURPOSE: To design a pilot curriculum to foster humanism in Graduate Medical Education (GME). BACKGROUND: Humanistic values have been recently emphasized in medical education with the advent of professionalism competencies. Few curriculum interventions affect humanistic professional development at the GME level. METHODS: OB/GYN and Internal Medicine residents' narratives regarding challenges to humanistic behavior were analyzed as a needs assessment with three themes identified: compassion fatigue, communication challenges, and work-life balance. Three curriculum sessions focusing on these themes were chosen from an existing faculty development course. Ten subjects participated in the curriculum, and these ten participants and 10 control residents completed baseline and 60-day follow-up questionnaires that assessed burnout, compassion satisfaction, the ability to practice psychological medicine (Psychological Medicine Inventory [PMI]), and the number of ethical missteps made within the last 30 days4. The mean differences in scores between the control and intervention subjects were compared using a two-tailed χ2 test. The success of the intervention was also measured with 5-point Likert satisfaction surveys. RESULTS: The curriculum met course objectives and was successfully incorporated into the residents' practice (mean score 4.8) There was a trend toward improved burnout and compassion satisfaction for the intervention group versus the control group (P=.13). There was no difference in PMI or reported ethical missteps. DISCUSSION: A pilot humanism curriculum for residents was well received. Participants showed a trend towards improved burnout and compassion satisfaction compared with non-participants. Development and evaluation of an expanded curriculum would further explore the feasibility and effectiveness of this type of intervention.

The hidden human rights curriculum of surveillance cameras in schools: due process, privacy and trust

This article explores how school principals integrate Closed Circuit TV systems (CCTVs) in educational practices and analyses the pedagogical implications of these practices through the lens of human rights. Drawing on interviews with school principals and municipality officials, we found that schools use CCTVs for three main purposes: (1) Discipline: gathering evidence by semi-legal procedures, which replace educational processes and are inattentive to pupils’ voices; (2) Monitoring: real-time surveillance of pupils, which includes both caring and policing practices; and (3) Producing trust, by refraining from accessing the footage. This usage attempts to invert the concern that CCTVs undermine trust, but it may prove a double-edged sword if the pupils do not believe the principal. We argue that each of these approaches shapes the schools’ hidden human rights curriculum, by which pupils learn about due process, privacy, and autonomy, and about the power relations that determine the scope of these rights.

Medical Humanities Coursework Is Associated with Greater Measured Empathy in Medical Students

PurposeThe primary focus of the study was to determine whether coursework in the medical humanities would ameliorate students' loss of and failure to develop empathy, a problem known to be common during medical education. MethodsStudents were offered an elective course in the Medical Humanities for academic credit. The Jefferson Scale of Empathy Student Version (JSE-S) was administered at the beginning and end of an academic year in which humanities courses were offered. Changes in JSE-S scores among students who studied Medical Humanities were compared with changes in student who did not take any humanities coursework. ResultsMedical humanities coursework correlated with superior empathy outcomes among the medical students. Of students not enrolled in humanities courses, 71% declined or failed to increase in JSE-S score over the academic year. Of those who took humanities coursework, 46% declined or failed to increase in JSE-S scores. The difference was statistically significant (P = .03). The medical humanities curriculum correlated with favorable empathy outcomes as measured by the JSE-S. ConclusionsElective medical humanities coursework correlated with improved empathy score outcomes in a group of US medical students. This may reflect a direct effect of the humanities coursework. Alternately, students' elective choice to take medical humanities coursework may be a marker for students with a propensity to favorable empathy outcomes.

Ultrasound-based lectures on cardiovascular physiology and reflexes for medical students.

Ultrasound has become a widely used diagnostic technique. While its role in patient evaluation is well known, its utility during preclinical courses such as anatomy and physiology is becoming increasingly recognized. The aim of the present study was to assess the feasibility/utility of integrating ultrasound-based sessions into conventional undergraduate medical school programs of physiology of the cardiovascular system and cardiovascular reflexes and to evaluate student perceptions of an ultrasound-based didactic session. Second-year medical students enrolled in the University of Padova attended a didactic session during which basic concepts regarding ultrasound instrumentation, image production, and spatial orientation were presented. Five anatomic sectors (the heart, aorta, neck vessels, inferior vena cava, and femoral veins) were then examined on a volunteer. Student perceptions of the images that were projected, the usefulness of the presentation, and the reproducibility of the experience were assessed at the end of the lecture with an anonymous questionnaire consisting of positive and negative items that were rated using a 5-point Likert scale and with two questions. One hundred eleven students attended the lecture; 99% of them found it very interesting, and none considered it boring or a waste of time. More than 96% thought it helped them to gain a better comprehension of the subject and would recommend it to a colleague. In conclusion, as ultrasound has been found to be a valuable resource for the teaching of physiology of the cardiovascular system and cardiovascular reflexes, efforts should be made to integrate ultrasound sessions into the traditional human physiology curriculum.

Preparing a presentation.

You are developing a Human Factors curriculum and you have dictatorial control. What will you do? I myself might count on the CHI Curriculum Committee to produce something soon enough to help struc...

Fostering Humanism in Medicine through Art and Reflection

ABSTRACTPhysician burnout and empathy erosion are common during training and clinical practice. Museums can effectively partner with health professional schools and hospitals to address these challenges through reflective practice and a focus on physician wellness. We describe a partnership between the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Department of Medicine and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts created to meet these needs. Since 2010, internal medicine residents have spent an evening of reflection and community-building at the museum as part of their Humanistic Curriculum. Residents participate in a visual thinking exercise, metaphor-making with contemporary art, group drawing, a discussion of death and dying, and a brief meditation. Residents report that the program has led them to renew commitments to family and friends, to spend time in daily reflection, and to connect more with patients. In this article we report perspectives from physician and museum stakeholders highlighting the value of this unique collaboration.

The place of videogames in the digital humanities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe how videogames can be worked into various courses in a digital humanities curriculum. Design/methodology/approach – The concepts included are drawn from media studies, game studies, and game-based learning. Findings – The Digital Humanities and Social Sciences (DHSS) BS degree will begin enrolling students in the academic year 2016-2017, at which time findings will be available. Originality/value – The DHSS BS degree is among the first of its kind, and will be a model for other programs to follow.

Restyling the humanities curriculum of higher education for posthuman times

ABSTRACTThe future viability of the humanities in higher education has been broadly debated. Yet, most of these debates are missing an important consideration. The humanities' object of study is the human, an object that some would argue has been replaced in our onto-epistemological systems by the posthuman. In her 2013 book, The Posthuman, Rosi Braidotti addresses and furthers this posthuman shift by explicating both her critical posthumanism and how the humanities curriculum can use it to restyle itself in its time of “crisis.” In this paper, I put Braidotti's text in conversation with John Dewey's 1929 Experience and Nature, prompting a reconsideration of the nature of experience as it manifests in a posthuman vital materialist form, and how posthuman empiricism may require a return to a new kind of sense experience; a reconsideration of the embodiment of subjectivities, and how they are to be articulated in a posthuman curriculum; and, correspondingly, a reconsideration of how one might come to enact and experience a “posthuman humanities.” I conclude that, along with this imperative to restyle the humanities for posthuman times comes a need to reconfigure the institution of higher education into an expanded posthuman network, perhaps one that reaches outside its present bounds.

Influence of Head Teacher Management of Preschool Programs and Learning Achievement in Mombasa County, Kenya

Management in education is the planning, resourcing, controlling, organizing, leading and evaluating educational institutions and programs. Organizational management is a key factor that influences teaching and learning in schools Chitiavi, (2002). Among key variables that school management influences significantly is children’s ability to learn and perform well which is a key determinant of learning achievement. Therefore head teachers are expected to possess relevant managerial skills to run schools. Physical facilities and human resources are paramount to achieve high learning achievements in schools. The purpose of this study was to establish impact of pre-school management on children’s learning achievement in Mombasa County, Kenya. Samples surveyed were public, private, faith-based and community pre-schools. The assumption was that managers focussed on four levels of management namely; human resource management, curriculum management, financial management and physical resources management. The study adapted descriptive survey design where samples included 11 pre-schools, 11 head teaches and 11 teachers 11 Parents and 106 preschool children. Instruments of this study were questionnaires and interviews schedules. Findings revealed that majority of pre-school teachers are paid very low salary between KShs 5001 and 9001 per month which is below stipulated minimum wage. Despite low salary, 54.5% of teachers prepared for teaching adequately. About 45.5% of all pre-schools have adequate playing and instructional resources. Private schools had an overwhelming 80% of parents who showed direct interest in childrens’ learning. Public primary headteachers manage pre-schools attached to their schools and therefore have no direct impact on pre-school progress. The study recommends that public pre-schools should be managed separately from primary schools and the pre-school head teacher should possess essential managerial skills to improve school efficiency and learning achievement for children.

Re-Imagining Screen and Stage in a Human Rights-Centered Curriculum

This essay explores the benefits of teaching and learning Latin American theatre in dialogue with film. Specifically, I discuss the dialogue between documentary modes of performance in the context of interdisciplinary courses on human rights and the arts that I have designed and taught in a Latin American studies program at American University. In my courses, I introduce theatre as a fundamental paradigm for understanding the collective, embodied, and intersubjective formations of human rights movements and action. Recent Latin American documentary theatre and film reveal a rich cross-pollination between genres; plays frequently incorporate documentary film footage, while many documentary films have become more theatrical or performative in nature. In this essay I show how studying documentary Latin American theatre and film in tandem can deepen and enhance an understanding of how these genres shape new modes of self-expression and activism, unsettle divisions between fact and fiction, advance and question existing forms of truth-telling, contribute new archives of knowledge, and engage discourses of memory, history, and human rights. I begin the essay by offering a theoretical framework and pedagogical rationale for learning and teaching documentary theatre in conjunction with documentary film. At the end of the essay, I propose the pairing of two Argentine works—Albertina Carri’s film Los rubios (2003) and Lola Arias’ play Mi vida despues (2009)—as a case study for how to approach the joint teaching of documentary film and theatre.

Teaching the Transformative Agenda of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Neoliberalism has dominated the world for over three decades and now permeates our laws, policies and practices at the international, national and local levels. The International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the European Union, the United States and China all support trade liberalization, privatization of public services and the primacy of markets over people. Indeed, neoliberalism has become so ingrained that it has become invisible and many of us no longer notice when new agendas conflict with international human rights laws and principles to which almost all countries in the world have committed themselves. Adopted in 1948, immediately after World War II, to implement one of the four goals of the new United Nations Organization, the norms and aspirations elaborated in the UDHR provide a framework for a radically different world than the one we have today. In this article, we revisit the content of the UDHR, beginning with the right to a social and international order in which everyone’s rights can be realized, and consider other key provisions that conflict with neoliberalism, including the rights to the benefits of science, to full employment and decent work, to progressive realization of free higher education, to nondiscrimination on the grounds of economic status and to solidarity. We also share some activities that we use in the classroom and online to make the transformative agenda of the UDHR visible to students and demonstrate how far we have strayed from the aspiration of a world in which everyone enjoys their human rights. The article concludes that teaching a holistic vision of the UDHR in a neoliberal world is a radical human rights curriculum.