Curriculum Management + Working Groups
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The Curriculum Management Unit (CMU) is an administrative team that manages all aspects of the MD Program’s curriculum. The unit is led by the Lead, Curriculum Management Unit and supported by the curriculum administrative assistants.
The CMU focuses on:
- What is taught (content, areas of expertise and learning objectives)
- How it is taught (learning resources, delivery of content and learning opportunities)
- How the delivery of the learning objectives is built into the program and throughout each course
- How the learning objectives and content are assessed
- When it is taught (timetable and curriculum sequence)
Reporting Structure
The CMU reports to the associate dean, MD Program, assistant dean, curriculum and the MD Curriculum & Program Committee (MDCPC) and collaborates with:
- The Program Evaluation Unit
- Sub-committees of MDCPC (e.g., Pre-Clerkship Coordinators Committee, Clerkship Coordinators Committee, Course Evaluation and Working Groups)
- Other committees (e.g., Assessment Committee)
- Pre-clerkship, Longitudinal Themes, Learning Science and Clerkship directors, course coordinators and students
Approach to Curriculum Planning + Management
The CMU takes the following approach to MD Program curriculum management:
- The curriculum is transparent, easy to understand, collaborative, feedback-driven and evidence-based.
- The CMU ensures curriculum analysis is valid and reliable.
- The unit makes curriculum information available in a timely manner to the appropriate partners.
- The CMU supports continuous quality improvement processes and values student involvement and input.
Curriculum Working Groups
The purpose of curriculum working groups is to:
- Update course and session-level objectives and assessments every two years
- Ensure integration of longitudinal themes and alignment between pre-clerkship and clerkship curriculums
- Review teaching, learning and assessment activities to ensure curriculum meets the required course-level objectives
Curriculum working groups include the following participants:
- Assistant dean, curriculum (chair)
- Assistant dean, program evaluation
- Course/clerkship coordinators (topic-specific)
- Director, clerkship/pre-clerkship (as applicable)
- Director, longitudinal themes
- Lead, Curriculum Management Unit
- Program evaluation specialist
- Rural representative
- Course or clerkship administrator
- Medical student representative
Course Evaluations + Reviews
The purpose of course evaluations and reviews is to:
- Follow up on action items from previous course evaluations and working group meetings
- Review items that worked well within the course
- Identify items that need improvement within the course
- Identify actionable items that need to be addressed and assign them to an accountable person
Course evaluations and reviews include the following participants:
- Associate dean, MD Program
- Assistant dean, curriculum (chair)
- Course/clerkship coordinators (topic-specific)
- Team lead, curriculum
- Lead, Curriculum Management Unit
- Medical student representative
Key Responsibilities of the CMU
The CMU is responsible for all aspects of planning and analyzing of the curriculum.
Specific responsibilities include:
- Overseeing the curriculum as a whole, including learning, program, course and session-level objectives, assessment analysis and strategic planning (including the 2022-2027 strategic plan) and curriculum mapping
- Maintaining an up-to-date curriculum management system and supporting faculty to access the system
- Analyze curriculum data for gaps and redundancies within the program for both teaching and learning sessions, as well as assessments
- Leading best practices in standardized communication, measurable objectives and curriculum mapping and management
- Searching the curriculum map for stakeholders, faculty and staff
- Ensuring all teaching sessions match the program-level objectives and graduate competencies
- Providing recommendations to streamline curriculum planning
- Reviewing curricular data each year to demonstrate compliance to the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS) accreditation standards
- Supporting the MDCPC and its subcommittees through reports and recommendations
- Overseeing bi-annual curriculum working groups for review of the content, format and learning objectives of each course
- Supporting the Program Evaluation Unit with annual course reviews
- Utilizing technology to streamline efforts and reduce costs and redundancies
- Providing faculty with information on the entire MD curriculum
- Managing follow-up and completion of strategic tasks
- Creating a difficulty index for each course based on course learning objectives (Method from Braband & Dahl, 2009)
- Mapping and presenting course, curriculum and CACMS accreditation standards data to the necessary stakeholders
This infographic outlines how the CMU operates.
- This diagram describes three areas in which the CMU operates.
- Top-left section
- Description of section: On-demand curriculum requests. Information requests made by MD Program partners to address specific questions about curriculum.
- On-demand curriculum requests involve an information need/question, develop approach, curriculum analysis and share results.
- Top-right section
- Description of section: MD Program strategic plan. Identifies the strategic priorities for the MD Program for the next five years.
- MD Program strategic plan involves six strategic priorities, year 1, 3 and 5 goals, curriculum updates and quarterly/annual reporting.
- Bottom section
- Description of section: MD Program curriculum, management and improvement of MD Program curriculum.
- MD Program curriculum involves program-level objectives, course objectives, session objectives, assessment mapping and curriculum mapping.
Contact Us
Dr. Petar Petrov, Lead, Curriculum Management Unit
Email: papetrov@ualberta.ca