Curriculum Development in Health Professions - Creating Academic Plans
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This presentation looks at the process of academic planning and how it occurs at several levels: course, program, and institutional (college-wide).
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Curriculum Development in Health Professions - Creating Academic Plans
- 1. Creating Academic Plans Chapter 5 2-16-2010 Seton Hall University Curriculum Development in Health Professions Marwah Zagzoug, MSHS
- 2. Chapter Highlights • Course Planning – Courses serve as the structural building blocks of curricula – “Characterized as decision making about the selection, organization, and sequence of routines.” (Yinger, 1979, p. 165) • Program Planning – Academic programs consist of a group of courses and experiences designated for a specific field or discipline • Institutional (College-Wide) Planning – The college curriculum integrates programs, disciplines, and fields of study
- 3. Course Planning • Content – Most instructors consider course content (not course objectives) as the first step when planning a course. • Context – Contextual influences filter/modify instructors’ views about their field. • learners’ characteristics, availability of facilities, external influences (professional and occupational fields) • Form (design) – Course decisions on goals, subject matter, instructional activities, sequence
- 4. Influences on Academic Planning
- 5. Program Planning • Content – Adapted to the demands of outside stakeholders (professional associations and accrediting agencies) • Context – Importance of goals and mission are strongest contextual influence on program planning • Mandates from specialized accreditors reinforce this influence • Form – Sequence designed to help students build a coherent view of the field
- 6. College-Wide Planning • Focuses on alignment of academic program with the institutional mission – Establishing, adjusting, or reaffirming the institution’s mission – Modifying academic programs in response to external environment. • Faculty members, administrators, experts, and students tend to be involved in college-wide curriculum planning. • Large universities are slower to consider curriculum change than small colleges.
- 7. Collaborative Course Development for Online Courses Haixia Xu & Libby V. Morris Innovative Higher Education (2007) 32:35-47 Article:
- 8. Online Course Development Traditional Course Development • Face-to-face environment • Focus on content and sequencing of content • Solo faculty development • Online environment • Focus on interactivity to replace f2f discussions • Collaborative faculty development
- 9. Overview Researchers investigated the development of an online humanities course by a team of faculty and instructional designers. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with participants, observation of four face-to-face planning meetings, and content analysis of course development at the online site. The study was guided by the theoretical frameworks of Berge’s typology of online facilitator roles and Stark & Lattuca’s framework on academic plans.
- 10. Overview • The research explores two areas – The course development process for online courses – The use of collaborative approach to course development
- 11. Theoretical Framework Berge’s Typology of Online Facilitation – Pedagogical (Curricular) role • Intellectual tasks – Social role • Community-building – Managerial role • Organizational, procedural, administrative – Technological role • Programming, HTML coding
- 12. Theoretical Framework Stark and Lattuca’s elements of an academic plan was used to analyze team curricular decisions.
- 13. Findings • Development model for f2f courses can be applied to online courses • Content was the primary focus • Perceptions of the collaborative process – Increased workload – Potential conflicts – Faculty development opportunity • Partnering novice faculty members with experienced peers in online course development provides greater benefit than partnering them with an instructional designer.
- 14. Findings • The team approach to course development combines the experience of instructional designers and disciplinary experts • Faculty report that working in a collaborative environment can be inspiring and reinforcing. – To be successful in a team environment, the individual needs to relinquish some decision-making control to others, respect the skills and knowledge of others, and be willing to compromise.
- 15. Questions for Discussion • When comparing a solo developed course vs. a collaboratively developed course, does collaborative work affect learning in the online environment? • Are online concerns and activities different for faculty members from the sciences than from the humanities? • Does collaborative work impede creative autonomy and flexibility that faculty normally enjoy in traditional course planning?
- 16. References Lattuca, LR, & Stark, JS. (2009). Creating Academic Plans. Shaping the College Curriculum: Academic Plans in Context (2nd ed., pp 115-143). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Xu, H., & Morris, L. (2007). Collaborative Course Development for Online Courses. Innovative Higher Education, 32(1), 35-47.
Editor's Notes
- Academic planning occurs at several levels: course, program, and college. Course and program planning are similar in regards that they both take special consideration of content, context, and form.
- Contrary to the expectation of design theorists, studies reveal that most instructors begin course planning by selecting content, rather than by determining objectives. Instructors “fine-tune” courses on an ongoing basis (routine course planning) through contextual influences.
- The Contextual Influences Model, found on pg. 118 in the textbook, demonstrates the current curricular planning processes at the course and program level. Content and context interact to shape decisions on course form.
- Planning courses and experiences designated for a specific group of students. Programs include academic majors, general education programs, formal interdisciplinary programs, study abroad, independent study, and other forms of educational programs. Program planning occurs sporadically as a result of strong organizational or external influences: shifts of thinking within field, changes in job market opportunities, modifications in accreditation standards
- Development of course goals and objectives and the selection of content do not differ between online and traditional course development. Course content still depends on learning outcomes in both cases. However, one major difference in online vs. traditional is the need to attend to the learners’ characteristics. Online course development requires greater attention in orchestrating flow of instruction to ensure interaction and feedback.
- The course development team that was used for this study consisted of “veteran faculty” experienced in developing and teaching online courses, and “novice faculty” who had no experience in online education.
- The authors of the study used Berge’s typology to examine the roles of course development team members and how they interact throughout the collaborative process. In the pedagogical role, the educational facilitator focuses on ways to probe learners for responses and discussions that focus on critical concepts, principles, and skills. In the social role, the emphasis is placed on creating a friendly online learning environment that does not rely on face-to-face contact to learn new material. The managerial role involves leadership in managing interactions by setting the agenda and objectives of the discussion and maintaining ongoing productive communication In the technological role, the facilitator ensures that the technology used for the online course is user-friendly and that participants are comfortable navigating through the software system so they can concentrate on the academic tasks.
- Increased workload: when developing a course on their own, faculty members treated it as more informal and less deliberate, hence it was less time-intensive. Potential conflicts: at some points faculty members had mixed feelings in some elements, particularly course design and structure. Faculty development opportunity: despite the hurdles, the team members unanimously agreed that the experience of collaboration in online course development is a valuable faculty development opportunity.