This plenary presentation from the EACH International Conference on Communication in Healthcare in Oslo 2008, takes an honest look at the present state of communication teaching and considers how to take the next steps to move communication into the very centre of medical education. Although clinical communication teaching has become increasingly accepted as a formal component of the medical cu...

Progress testing in the Netherlands has a long history. It was first introduced at one medical school which had a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum from the start. Later, other schools with and without PBL curricula joined. At present, approximately 10,000 students sit a test every three months. The annual progress exam is not a single test. It consists of a series of 4 tests per annum wh...

The primary purpose of the undergraduate occupational therapy curriculum at The University of Sydney is to prepare students for the academic, practical and ethical demands of occupational therapy practice (School of Occupational Therapy, 1986). As part of a former College of Advanced Education, Cumberland College of Health Sciences (CCHS), the School of Occupational Therapy was required by the ...

This paper aims to explore the model of curriculum evaluation in use in the Queensland senior secondary school system in ways that lead to identification of some elements of effective curriculum evaluation. It does this by exploring the broad orientation of the Queensland senior system in the context of some key questions about the nature, development and conceptualisation of curriculum evaluat...

The Open University's repository of research publications and other research outputs Learning the language of school history: the role of linguistics in mapping the writing demands of the secondary school curriculum Journal Article How to cite: Coffin, Caroline (2006). Learning the language of school history: the role of linguistics in mapping the writing demands of the secondary school curricu...

Recent worldwide trends in curriculum policy have re-emphasised the role of teachers in school-based curriculum development. Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence is typical of these trends, stressing that teachers are agents of change. This paper draws upon empirical data to explore school-based curriculum development in response to Curriculum for Excellence. We focus on two case studies – seco...

Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is a good example of a new breed of national curriculum; a curricular model that seeks to combine top-down government prescription with bottom-up school-based curriculum development by teaching professionals. However, in developing a renewed view of teachers as agents of change and relaxing curriculum prescription, CfE has attracted criticism for its v...

BACKGROUND The use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD) by adolescents is a national health issue. One way in which the United States approaches the prevention of substance use among adolescents is by teaching high school students about ATOD at school. The curriculum for health education courses is based upon each state's framework. The purpose of this study was to conduct a 10-year foll...

OBJECTIVES Curriculum reform poses significant challenges for medical schools across the globe. Understanding the medical educator's personal and lived experience of curriculum change is paramount. This paper illustrates the use of narrative inquiry as a means of exploring the author's own evolving professional identity as a medical educator engaged in planning and leading curriculum reform and...