Curricular Revision - Structure by

Survey results summary

johnremnant — 2023-10-02 16:36:07 UTC

Here is summary of the numeric and freetext responses to the survey on the guiding principles

Week 1. How much time should be dedicated to veterinary professional work experience in year 1? year 2? year 3? year 4?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-06 16:44:27 UTC

*Experiences students seek out outside of class time (i.e. summer break, weekends) are not considered part of the curriculum*

Week 2. How do we organize the time spent in each year on professional work experience (PWE)? (Consider feasibility and logistics).

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-06 16:49:56 UTC

Should this just be clinical placements? What experiences must all students have? What can be varied? How do we integrate PWE with the rest of our teaching?

Week 1. How do we create a culture where we are happy to ask the questions: what are we doing well? how well are we doing? where can we improve?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-06 16:51:41 UTC

Recognizing that quality improvement is fundamentally a way for us to improve the quality of the veterinarians we produce, how do we decide what is valued in the curriculum and therefore should be monitored for quality?

Week 2. What quality assessment processes can we enact beyond student feedback?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-06 16:52:53 UTC

How do we ensure we are delivering the planned curriculum? How do we ensure best practices are implemented widely? What sources of data do we need to support these efforts?

Week 1. What is our role as faculty at UCVM (e.g. instructors, coaches, experts, partners)?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-06 16:57:41 UTC

What is the ideal learning session structure (i.e. large classes, smaller classes, tutorial sessions, flexible modules, etc)?

What is the ideal number of total hours dedicated to learning in a day? How many hours should be structured learning with instruction (i.e. lecture or lab)? How many hours should be structured learning without an instructor (i.e. self-regulated assigned learning task; such as pre-class or pre-lab reading)? How many hours should be scheduled independent learning (self-study)? How many hours should be unscheduled independent learning (self-study outside of class time beyond the school day)?

Week 2. How many semesters a year should our program run? (Currently it runs 2 semesters a year in years 1-3, then 4 semesters in year 4)

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-06 18:03:01 UTC

Our 4 year program must currently be completed within 6 years maximum. Is this reasonable?

Do all students have to be engaged with the DVM program on a full time basis (at all times) to complete our program? If not, what might this look like/how might it work?

Week 1. Given we are dedicated to integration of the curriculum, how should we organize the curriculum components (i.e. by system, subject, case-based, problem-based, etc...)?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-06 18:06:15 UTC

What is the overarching goal for each academic season (i.e. year or semester, or division that makes most sense to your group)?

Week 2. What should each year of the curriculum aim to achieve (overarching goal)? How should each year build upon the previous year (vertical integration)?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-06 18:08:34 UTC

How could we use scheduling to improve linkage of the topics (underpinning science/labs/clinical cases) within a year (horizontal integration)?

What barriers to integration of all essential topics does our current course structure (super courses - CPs, CSkills, PSkills, coupled with other individual courses) introduce?

Week 1. If career intent impacts education, what are the new proposed streams or tracks?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-06 18:09:19 UTC

Week 2. When should streaming/tracking start?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-06 18:10:23 UTC

What does this model look like? How do you propose we broadly organize the various streams/tracks? (complete separation after common core, weaving, branching, etc)?

Curriculum review document (Aug 2023)

johnremnant — 2023-10-06 18:36:14 UTC

Here is a copy of the full report prepared before the initial retreat and survey. This report contains summaries of external and internal stakeholder feedback that might be particularly relevant. It also explains some of the justification for the guiding questions and changes proposed.

Reading and resources

johnremnant — 2023-10-06 18:37:32 UTC

Attached is a summary document with some background information and useful papers relevant to each working group if you would like some context or examples from other schools

Full verbatim survey results

johnremnant — 2023-10-06 18:39:50 UTC

The full survey results are provided here. This includes all the free text used to generate the summaries so you can see the specific individual concerns and suggestions (note - there was one more late response included here not in the summary figures)

How to use padlet

johnremnant — 2023-10-06 18:51:21 UTC

You can see the working groups below, with each week's question in a green box. You can add comments under any of these blocks (Add comment) or add your own blocks by pressing the '+' symbol in the bottom right. You can show support for a comment by adding a rate/*. You can attach documents or links to your posts. We have used green for the questions and blue for information. We suggest using white for additional posts. Please remember everything you post is visible to everyone and anyone with the link.

Week 3. What specific professional experiences should be offered in each year? What experiences do all students need to partake in each year, which can have a degree of choice or flexibility?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-14 02:34:24 UTC

What are the learning objectives for each of the yeas 1-4 professional work experience sessions?

Week 3. Who is responsible for ensuring that as the curriculum evolves, important outcomes are not lost? For the curriculum as a whole, as well as for vital specific components of the curriculum? What mechanisms can we employ to avoid inadvertent curricular drift (from the programmatic, year, and course objectives) and maintenance of best practices?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-14 02:38:12 UTC

Do we need a faculty member assigned to oversee all teaching of core topics? (For example, a pharmacology lead who would keep track of everywhere in the curriculum drugs are discussed, and ensure there is complete and adequate coverage with no conflicts)? If NOT, how do we ensure this degree of oversight?

Week 3. What degree of flexibility is important with remediation? If a student fails a single class, do they need to repeat the entire year? Can they repeat only the class? (if repeating only the class, can they take any other classes while they are repeating? When can they take the repeated class?)

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-14 02:42:40 UTC

What degree of flexibility should students have for how they engage with their learning? Within a day and throughout a course or semester? How might this be impacted by streaming?

Week 3. What balance would you suggest between "streaming" approach (students picking a career interest and having a predetermined combination of teaching) and "elective" approaches (students being able to choose from an array of courses or offerings independently)?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-14 02:49:28 UTC

Is it advantageous to teach core material in different ways to different streams? Or must all students (in a particular year) come together to learn all core material?

Week 3. Can you suggest groupings of topics that could be taught together to better align similar material in each year? Would these be explicitly built upon in the following year or do we need different groupings in each year?

marinamcconkey — 2023-10-20 18:37:20 UTC

Should each of CPs, CSkills, and PSkills be stand alone courses or should they be mandatory components of other/all core courses in each year? Why or why not for each?

Week 4. How many of the PWE ½ or week-long experiences in 2nd and 3rd year are ideal from a learning perspective?

james1245 — 2023-10-27 20:43:09 UTC

What type of limited experiences in each of the categories (industry, research, practice) in 2^nd year do you propose?

Do you have any other suggestions or ideas regarding PWE in the curriculum?

Week 4. What are the needed topic/species leads?

james1245 — 2023-10-27 20:44:58 UTC

How should proposed curricular changes be reported? How frequently are these reports necessary? Is it reasonable that changes happen a year in advance at the proposed annual meeting?
What specific role does the Curriculum Committee have in overseeing the reports and suggested changes from the topic/species leads?
What specific information should all instructors have access to? What information needs to be collected and disseminated?

Can credit be given for previously completed courses (prior to DVM)?

james1245 — 2023-10-27 20:46:48 UTC

• At UCVM? At UCalgary? At other institutions?

• If so, what happens to that time in the student’s schedule?

• Free time? Opportunity to fill with electives?

Based on an identified need for oversight of group progress prior to major summative exams, is there value in having academic advisors oversee the individual progress of small groups of students with similar career goals (or other linking characteristics)?

Potentially a small cohort within each year (to facilitate sustainability of management by a faculty member and also ease of transition of the group if necessary)

Week 4. What foundational material is critical to cover prior to engaging in case-based learning and inquiry?

james1245 — 2023-10-27 20:47:58 UTC

How do we maximize comparative biology and medicine prior to case-based learning? Can we build linkages between content in ways beyond case-beyond learning?

How do we best link experiential, laboratory, and case-based learning?

Week 4. Given that a guiding principle of the new curriculum is that intended career choice should influence veterinary education, what themes of general level practice (i.e. small animal, mixed animal, production animal) do you recommend be incorporated into the curriculum?

james1245 — 2023-10-27 20:49:06 UTC

Understanding that identifying core material is difficult and contentious, how would this group distinguish core from potential stream or elective material?

Nov 16 CR Structure Presentation

marinamcconkey — 2023-11-17 23:09:25 UTC

On November 16, we examined the initial curriculum framework, taking into account the input and feedback received from the working groups.

We appreciate your feedback! Kindly assess the documents and share any comments or suggestions on Padlet.

The final review of the curriculum structure is scheduled for Friday, November 24, in collaboration with the working groups.

Curriculum Structure Proposal - To be further refined

marinamcconkey — 2023-11-17 23:10:20 UTC

SWOT Analysis Template

marinamcconkey — 2023-11-17 23:14:04 UTC

Please review the proposed structure. We ask you to please consider the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal and to provide actionable suggestions for how we can improve the proposal. This template can be filled out and posted to this page, posted to the CR Teams site, or comments emailed marina.mcconkey@ucalgary.ca or John.remnant@ucalgary.ca

Second Draft Proposed Curriculum Structure

james1245 — 2023-11-27 22:04:40 UTC

On November 24, we presented the revised structure based on the feedback and comments received from our working group meeting on November 16. We have also uploaded a recording of the meeting on our Curriculum Revision MS Teams Page

Curriculum Structure Revised Presentation

james1245 — 2023-11-27 22:07:49 UTC

Curriculum Structure Course Descriptions

james1245 — 2023-11-27 22:20:14 UTC

2023-12-04 19:54:59 UTC

Content issues

johnremnant1 — 2023-12-06 16:23:13 UTC

If the overall structure is approved, our next phase will be to start reviewing in detail exactly what will be taught when and which courses (including cross referencing with current teaching). I thought I'd add this tab for people to flag areas of concern for us to pass on to those working groups when they are established...(I've tried to summarise those listed elsewhere so far below...)