GOALS OF CURRICULUM PLANNING

EPC Meeting, March 4, 1999 

• a curriculum that is not overcrowded and that contains no more than 4-6 courses per quarter,
• a curriculum where the students are provided with significant amounts of unstructured time, so that they can learn some things on their own,
• a curriculum that employs active learning methods and that has the ability to assess the effectiveness of what ever learning methods it employs,
• a curriculum that teaches our students not only the information and skills needed to be a competent clinician, but that also gives them the means with which to become life-long learners
• a curriculum where basic sciences and clinical applications are thoroughly integrated. Clinically relevant material should pervade all basic science instruction units, and the scientific method should pervade all clinical teaching. All faculty should understand the rationale for what they teach and why they teach it when they do (i.e., how it fits into the overall curriculum),
• a curriculum that trains our students to be competent oral physicians, i.e., to understand the relationship between the oral/maxillofacial complex and the rest of the body
• a curriculum that defines the competencies that it expects from its students and that has a system for assessing those competencies (outcomes assessment),
• a means of continually managing the curriculum that uses both faculty and administrative resources and that applies academically sound global principles agreed on by faculty.