Curriculum Developing

Briefly over the past 18 months I have mentioned that I am a curriculum developer for the midwifery course run by Griffith University in Queensland.

I haven't blogged about it much because I already spend hours and hours researching, learning, writing and creating for these modules. I am afraid that blogging has gone on the back burner especially when I fall behind on the deadline.

You may have gathered from my last post I went for an interview to attempt to realise my career dream/ambition of becoming a midwifery lecturer. I was asked at interview how it was that I started to develop a module of the curriculum for the online environment.

I need to outline what it is I am actually developing because many other universities simply think that writing a one hour tutorial is online educational development of a course. These tutorials simply consist of an introduction to a subject, a reference to a suitable chapter reading in a book and then a series of 20-40 questions on that chapter reading. The following week the students get the answers to the questions.

Griffith University online curriculum development is becoming a complete supportive framework for students learning and is designed to be 'blended' with other forms of learning. A warning to everyone the online development of topics is not a substitute for textbooks or additional reading it is designed to complement it.

By the end of this year/ beginning of next I will be responsible for the development of 1/5th of the midwifery course curriculum. Each module consists of up to 13 topics in some cases and needs to be much, much more than just an online textbook. It needs to inspire, inform, evaluate that the students can seek out new life and new civilisations, oops wrong phrasing, but they need to be able to seek out the information, be able to apply it and evaluate what they have written. The online environment must also be conducive to building a supportive peer group network, promote collaboration and provide a supportive framework for establishing lifelong professional learning.

All that aside having the opportunity to develop this curriculum has given me the opportunity to grow so much professionally and built so much on my professional knowledge I am beginning to feel quite emotional about my personal growth.

The last few days I have been exploring women who are pregnant and have special needs. It has opened my eyes to the prejudices they face, the judgmental attitudes and their search to be validated as women with the ability to have a reproductive life.

I am in essence on a learning journey of my own as a develop these topics for student midwives.