2024-2025 Academic Catalog

HPE 565 Curriculum Development

This is a course designed to assist health professions educators to plan, develop, and evaluate a curriculum. Curriculum is derived from the word corre, meaning race, and it literally means the little race that our learners "run" to achieve our goals and objectives. From this broad perspective, curriculum integrates content with educational theory and methodology, and then evaluates its successes (and failures). This course will cover the following topics: elements of curriculum, development process, goals and objectives, educational strategies, implementation, involvement of stakeholders, course organization, and brief review of teaching methodologies (covered in HPE 555), program evaluation, and of feedback techniques. This course emphasizes the practical application of course content to health profession education settings. This course will broadly discuss planning, development and assessment of curriculum and distinguish it from syllabi, instructional methods, and teaching.

 

Course Goals: This course provides a hands-on opportunity to learn the process of curriculum development and improvement. Learners will practice the Six-Step Approach to Curriculum Development (Thomas, Kern, et al, 2016) with a curriculum for which they have had responsibility. This course promotes learners to combine their expertise in health care with theoretical, cultural, and practical frameworks to create and revise curricular material. This course is broadly designed to: 1. Provide an overview of the main concepts involved in curricular design, revision, and implementation; and 2. Raise awareness of how the organizational and social context contributes to the development and implementation of the curriculum. 

Credits

2

Learning Objectives

  1. Describe models of curriculum development, including the Six-Step approach;
  2. Articulate and analyze a curriculum’s General Needs Assessment;
  3. Articulate and analyze a curriculum’s Targeted Needs Assessment;
  4. Articulate and analyze a curriculum’s Goals and Objectives;
  5. Articulate and analyze a curriculum’s Educational Strategies;
  6. Articulate and analyze a curriculum’s Program Evaluation;
  7. Articulate and analyze strategies and issues to Implement a curriculum;
  8. Articulate a personal approach to developing and implementing health professions education curricula.