Name: Bridging the Gap: Constructions of Curricular Integration in Professions Education
Date: Wednesday, October 31
Time: 12:00pm – 2:00pm
Location: UBC Michael Smith Labs (Host Site): MSL 102. Videoconferencing available at the following locations: VGH: DHCC 11124; St. Paul’s: SPH 4/5; UNBC: NHSC 9-370 and University Hospital of Northern BC: UHNBC 5017; Victoria General Hospital: VGH 1912; UVIC Medical Science Building: MSB 210; UBCO Health Sciences Centre: HSC 129; Kelowna General Hospital: KGH CAC 235
Description: In this session, panelists from across the health professions discuss curricular integration as the perceived solution to key issues in professions education. A discussant provides a synthesis of these issues and a perspective from the Faculty of Education. Audience members are invited to engage in a discussion with the presenters and to explore some of the questions that arise as we uncover these issues.
Integration is becoming a dominant discourse across professions education. These discussions include issues of both “horizontal” and “vertical” integration. The discourse of horizontal integration recognizes the need to coordinate subject delivery across topics within the classroom or across practical experiences, organizing material coherently on behalf of students. Vertical integration (up the curriculum) refers to the integration of classroom and practice settings to ensure that material learned in the classroom is relevant to the practice setting.
The mechanisms proposed to manage integration are many. They include, modifying classroom teaching material so that it is more relevant to practice, organizing lecture around real-life cases, using mechanisms such as problem-based learning (PBL), engaging active practitioners in classroom teaching. But why choose to integrate curricula in the first place? What is the problem that integration proposes to solve? Across the health disciplines we have noticed both similarities and differences in understanding of and approaches to curricular integration. In this panel discussion we intend to explore these similarities and differences in an attempt to better understand the goals of curricular integration and the particular challenges faced by the professions in structuring their curricula. While focused on examples from the health professions, it is anticipated that this presentation and discussion will be valuable to educators and students across professional education.
Open to Public, Recommended for Faculty, Students, and Staff who wish to explore questions related to curricular integration in professions education.
Learn more: http://ches.med.ubc.ca/