Tensions in Curriculum
Development
Prof Della Freeth
Clarifying curriculum
• Not simply a syllabus with assessments Whole learning experience, planned and
unanticipated
• Curriculum as:
– written
– delivered
– Received
• Formal and hidden curricula
Tensions - not so much ...
More like ...
Tension Triangles – Knud Illeris
• How we learn: learning and non-learning
in school and beyond
• 2007, Routledge
• Published in Danish in 1999
Individual learning triangle
Incentive/emotion
Interaction
•
Content/cognition
Social
environment
Interaction triangle
Individual
Interaction
•
Social situation
(e.g. classroom,
simulation, workplace)
Societal situation
Environment
Illeris’ learning model
Individual
Incentive/emotion
Interaction
•
Content/cognition
Social situation
Societal situation
Environment
Think of model as creative
tensions supporting curriculum
development ...
WHO Patient Safety Curriculum
for Medical Schools
www.who.int/patientsafety/education/curriculum/en/
• Introduced 2009, being piloted in 10
countries, ‘multiprofessional’ guide under
development
• 258 pages “... a comprehensive, ready-toteach, topic-based patient safety
programme” p4
Approach
• Detailed teachers’ notes and presentation
slides provided. Also some case studies.
•
Eleven topics:
1. What is patient safety?
2. What is human factors and why is it
important to patient safety?
3. Understanding systems and the impact of
complexity on patient care
4. Being an effective team player.
5. Understanding and learning from errors.
6. Understanding and managing clinical risk.
Topics continued
7. Introduction to quality improvement
methods.
8. Engaging with patients and carers.
9. Minimizing infection through improved
infection control.
10.Patient safety and invasive procedures.
11.Improving medication safety.
Patient safety curriculum and
Illeris’ model
• Is content dominating at present?
• Will the suggested activities provide
emotions/incentives that support positive
and enduring learning?
• How can we focus on productive tensions
and balance points between content,
emotion and social environments?
Some thoughts ...
• Importance of variety (e.g. stimulus
material, structure of learning opportunity;
perhaps also which corner of the individual
triangle leads)
• Strategic choice of learning environments,
playing to the strengths of each:
workplaces, classrooms, residential and
leisure settings, physical simulations,
virtual worlds, drama, archives of patient
experiences, media archives, ...
Some other tensions
Thread or block?
I favour
Exotic or mundane?
Error reduction or error recovery?
• See Dror, I. (2011) A novel approach to
minimize error in the medical domain:
Cognitive neuroscientific insights into
training. Medical Teacher, 33(1):34-38
• Theory and ideals,
societal expectations,
national policy ...
• Daily realities in
workplaces, patients’
homes, public spaces
Challenges
• How might you use the Illeris model to:
– plan and enliven patient safety education?
– Attend to tensions that you encounter?
Thank you
• d.freeth@qmul.ac.uk