NunrEduatim Todq (1991) 11,121-126 @ Longman Group UK Ltd 1991

WORK Faculty development: the essence of curriculum development

Kathy L Rush, Louiselle L Ouellet and Dorothy Wasson

For years, nurse ‘educators’ approach to curriculum building has been one entrenched in the behaviourist school of thinking. The outcome for nursing was a graduate who could function well in a predictable environment. However, as nursing practice is becoming increasingly complex, nurse educators feel more and more disenchanted with this approach and are turning to orientations which support a professional model of education. Shifting orientation to a paradigm for professional education requires that educators change their views and practices to reflect the assumptions underlying the new paradigm. This paper examines the process involved in shifting orientations to curriculum development and proposes strategies to mobilise educators in their own resocialisation to their new roles as educators and learners.

INTRODUCTION

Curriculum development in nursing education continues to be the pivotal and ongoing point of faculty’s activities in most nursing programs. This is evident in the endless hours spent in committee meetings and on faculty deliberations discussing content placement, re-writing objectives, and re-sequencing clinical experi- ences. The time has come for nurse educators to examine where these regular exercises are taking them. Why is there a need to make such frequent changes? Are they contributing to the ‘status quo’ or are they moving the curriculum towards new height? How much longer will

Kathy L Rush BN MSc Assistant Professor, University of New Brunswick, Facultv of Nursing, PO Box 4400, Fredericton, N.B. Canada i3B 5A3 Lc&selle L Ouellet RN MSN Assistant Professor, University of New Brunswick, Dorothy Wasson RNMSc Assistant Professor, University of New Brunswick (Requests for offprints to KLR) Manuscript accepted 29 September 1990

nurse educators continue to shuffle the substance of their curriculum before realising that this is not producing the outcomes necessary to keep pace with constantly changing societal trends which impact on the practice of the profession?

These and other such questions must be addressed by nurse educators if meaningful change in curriculum design is to occur. In this paper, the process of clarifying these queries and exploring new orientations to curriculum development are discussed. Also, the impli- cations of adopting a different approach are considered within the context of faculty development.

CURRICULUM ORIENTATION - TRADITIONAL VS NON- TRADITIONAL

Nurse educators are well versed and entrenched in the traditional approach to curriculum build- ing which emanated primarily from Tyler’s work

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on curriculum (Bevis & Clayton 1988). His framework was embraced and expanded by nurse leaders and now permeates all aspects of curricula. The adaptations of the Tyler’s behav- iourist model generally encompass the following sequence of components: a philosophy, a con- ceptual framework, strands and threads, termi- nal objectives, level objectives, course of study and course objectives. This structure reflects a linear process which assumes that learning is instrumental in nature. Moreover, implicit in a behaviourist curriculum are such shortcomings as : (a) aspects of knowing (creativity, caring, critical-thinking) basic to the practice of nursing that do not fit the framework, (b) teacher directed learning activities which reinforce pas- sivity in the student and forfeit accountability for learning, (c) emphasis on the presentation of content with minimal attention assigned to meanings, (d) minimal acknowledgment of differences in learning styles amongst students and (e) emphasis on less relevant behaviours at the expense of more important outcomes. Such a curriculum creates an environment which pro- motes conformity and compliance and suppresses the development of creative, independent thinking in the students. While this approach has served nursing well in an era when nursing education needed to be legitimised (Diekelmann 1988), it is now clear that it does not fully support an educative mode of teaching/ learning required to prepare the future pro- fessional nurse.

The limitations of the traditional approach prompted nurse educators to explore alternate curriculum orientations. The impetus was such that a curriculum revolution movement was born and is now sweeping North America. This revolution is opening up avenues for new and different ways of conceptualising curriculum development. More specifically, Bevis’ and Wat- son’s (1989) work offers a humanistic-educative approach to nursing education. Bevis’ redefm- ition of curriculum as ‘the transactions and interactions that occur between and amongst students and teachers with the intent that learn- ing takes place’ (Bevis & Watson 1989, p 72) changes the very essence of a curriculum. In fact, the curriculum foundation that was once built

solely on content now arises out of interactional processes around that content.

This approach certainly has implications for both faculty and students. Obvious ones include:

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The unidirectional flow of information is replaced by a reciprocal exchange of information which takes the form of a dialogue. Both interactions and content form the basis for learning. With this approach, content becomes the medium for the inter- actions rather than the substance of the learning itself. Teachers and students are active co-parti- cipants in the learning process. The deci- sions about what needs to be learned and how it is to be learned are shared ones and no longer exclusively within the realm of the teacher. Expertise and ability in interpersonal and learning processes are prerequisites for faculty members and a goal for students.

Adopting such an approach requires a radical shift in thinking and attitudes about the teacher- student role in the learning process and in the shaping of a curriculum. However, before a change can be effected in the student role, faculty members need to develop their comp- lementary role as educators.

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT

The concept of faculty development needs to be redefined to reflect the shift in curriculum orientation. Faculty development, according to Bevis, involves both developing the self as a content expert and as an expert learner in order to become liberating educators (Bevis & Watson 1989). By definition, an educator must direct her development towards becoming an expert in learning in order to assist students in learning how to learn and become scholars. This is achieved by using educative modes of thinking and by promoting the utilisation of these modes by the student. Bevis’ typology of learning distin- guishes training modes (items, directive, rationale) from educative modes of learning

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(contextual, syntactical, inquiry) (Bevis & Watson Reflection in practice 1989). It is the latter set of learning modes that support professional education.

A strategy that can begin faculty development

When educative modes are fostered, minds and keep it moving is what Schon (1987) calls

are freed from the oppressive confines of reflecting-in-practice . Nursing faculty, in

training and opened to questioning, intuiting, shifting to a new curriculum paradigm that uses

seeing patterns and finding meanings, investi- interactions and transactions between and

gating, strategising, dreaming and creating. among students and faculty as a basis for learn-

Within this framework, faculty development can ing, must reflect on the practice of teaching. As

be viewed as the resocialisation of faculty into the approach to learning changes so too does the

educative processes that are liberating for both approach to teaching. When nurse educators

the educator and student. This resocialisation, repeatedly encounter certain types of situations,

based on principles of critical social theory, is a they develop a repertoire of role expectations

deliberate, active, and norms for practice (norms that are often

conscious process which based on unquestioned assumptions) which empowers both the educator and student. Critical ways of knowing and thinking which

translate into a teaching role that becomes

form the underpinnings of critical social theory increasingly spontaneous and automatic. H

make evident oppressive forces that thwart the owever, educators are thrust into the reflective

realisation of individual or group potential and process when confronted with the conflict of

promote liberation from constraining circum- traditional teaching norms which are incompat-

stances (Geuss 1981). Critical social theory sug- ible with the philosophy underlying the new

gests that liberation is accomplished by raising paradigm. When the very essence and underly-

the consciousness of individuals who are ing assumptions of the educators’ normative

impeded by oppressive constraints and bringing practices are challenged, the resulting feelings of

about ‘conditions in which oppressive elements uncertainty, conflict and ambiguity prompt an

are illuminated and a dialogue about action for inquiry into the very practices themselves, which

change can occur’ (Stevens 1989, p 61). Schon (1987) regards as the starting point for the

This shift from the limitations of a behav- reflective process. The reflective process

iourist model with all the sense of comfort it involves the educator in actively seeking new

provides for faculty to a critical social theory understandings of and insights into the very

perspective can pose a very real threat to the nature of the teaching role. By experimenting

faculty’s modes of thinking and interacting with with new teaching approaches the educator

students in classroom and clinical environments. gradually brings about a change in how learning

Escaping the traditional paradigm and adopting occurs and in her role in effecting this change

one which questions so thoroughly the assump- which is consistent with this new paradigm.

tions of the original model should be a gradual Reflection-in-practice requires that the educa-

process unfolding only as faculty themselves tor is open to experiencing the unexpected in

develop and come to terms with its implications. learning situations, to feeling the discomfort associated with role function changes and to being challenged by the perplexing, as she practises within the teaching-learning situation. In one sense the teaching-learning situation is

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT ‘talking back’. The educator is actively engaged

STRATEGIES in listening to and acting upon what the situation has to say about student behaviour, teacher

The resocialisation process of faculty will require behaviour and the very learning environment that change take place. The prospect of facing itself. another change may be overwhelming to some Although generally triggered by a situation educators. Strategies that can be used to mobilise that falls outside the range of ordinary role faculty towards this change are suggested. expectations (Schon 1987), reflection-in-practice

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is a strategy that need not ‘just happen’ but should be planned and purposeful. Educators must not only be reactors to atypical learning- teaching situations but must be proactors in reading external signs and internal cues that characterise the learning experience. In effect, the educator who reflects-in-practice is continu- ally placed in touch with the climate of learning and can match teaching to this changing environment.

The interpersonal process

Central to a curriculum built on interactions and transactions between and among faculty and students is the interpersonal process. This pro- cess applied to the teaching-learning situation, while not foreign to nursing, requires learning new ways of using some interpersonal

competencies the educator-practitioner already possesses, and adding to the existing ones.

As educators begin to develop interpersonal processes among themselves they will be better equipped to transfer these skills to their transac- tions with students. An important set of foun- dation skills for educators to develop are collegial skills which according to Bajnok and Gitterman (1988) enable educators to work together in a united and supportive way, as partners and peers, to achieve mutual goals. Collegiality infers a departure from hierarchical control (Gibbs 1990) thus necessitating the build- ing of equal relationships. To this end, Wheeler and Chinn (1989) offer non-traditional ways for educators to develop new patterns of relating to one another. These ways will help educators move toward relationships built on equality, trust, caring, nurturing and support which in turn will create a faculty culture conducive to faculty development (Bevis & Watson 1989).

As well as developing relationships that are characterised by unity and support, educators must develop an ability to set the climate for students’ interactions around the content. Bevis’ new approach to curriculum requires that both student and teacher relate to content in different ways (Bevis & Watson 1989). Thus the emphasis in faculty development must be on acquiring such competencies as: inquiring, strategising,

raising questions and issues, seeking meanings and new ways of seeing and understanding, criticising, discussing, and negotiating. These competencies offer educative modes of relating to content.

Values clarification

As faculty reflect on their practice and on the kind of faculty culture they wish to foster, the need to examine closely their values to determine the degree of fit with the assumptions inherent in the new paradigm will become evi- dent. The Raths et al (1966) model of values clarification can serve as a useful framework for this exercise. This model sees the process of valuing as including the following requirements: choosing freely from among alternatives after thoughtful consideration of each alternative, prizing and cherishing, affirming, acting upon choices and repeating. (Rath et al 1966).

An issue immediately confronting the educa- tor who embraces the new paradigm is the use of active and interactive learning strategies as a means to promote independence and creativity in the learner. The use of interactive modes of learning requires that the educator relinquishes total control over learning activities and initiates dialogue with students thus necessitating a realignment of classroom behaviours on the part of the educator. The educator is then faced with soul-searching on the fit between the assump- tions and values underlying this strategy and personal values and beliefs about the teaching- learning process. For this link to occur the educator has to come to terms with: (a) cher- ishing or prizing autonomy in the student and the sharing of power, (b) believing in education that is liberating and in interactive learning as a strategy to achieve liberation, (c) being able to understand the significance and possible con- sequences of interactive learning, (d) feeling free to choose this mode of learning over others and (e) being consistent in its implementation. When the new behaviour is consistently demonstrated, it can then be said that the new value has been adopted.

Values clarification is a process essential to the successful re-socialisation of faculty. In fact,

faculty need to decide about the kinds of be- haviours that they wish to see in both the students and themselves and to sort out their own values vis-a-vis these behaviours before meaningful changes can be made to their prac- tice and to faculty culture.

Conflict resolution

In curriculum and faculty development the potential for conflict is heightened because the process involves change and renewal. Change can cause internal disequilibrium. The prospect of foregoing comfortable practices and interper- sonal relationships and introducing unfamiliar ones can become an emotionally charged issue which faculty might feel the need to defend. As faculty explore their values, beliefs, goals and practices, differences will surface. These differ- ences, if maximized, can become a breeding ground for conflict. Similarly, differences in faculty’s desires for control, status, and affili- ation (Northouse & Northouse 1985, p 285) can increase tension and dissension thereby intensi- fying the conflict.

Conflict is inevitable and faculty must be encouraged to confront it rather than avoid it. For too long conflict has been perceived as a negative occurrence reflecting a lack of interper- sonal skills and an inability to function collabora- tively. Contrary to this belief, conflict has many positive functions that can promote growth and progress (Haber et al 1982, ~128).

Haber et al (1982) suggest the use of cooper- ative processes for resolving conflict in positive and constructive ways. Of the features charac- terising this process,’ the following are particu- larly relevant to the creation of a faculty culture conducive to growth:

a) exchanging information and ideas openly and freely. This can result in fewer misper- ceptions and misunderstandings and can increase the level of trust amongst faculty.

b) increasing sensitivity to similarities and common interests while at the same time acknowledging and valuing differences. Group members’ differences are mini- mised when individual views are

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expressed, understood by all, and inte- grated into a richer and fuller appreci- ation of every group member (Wheeler & Chinn 1989). This ultimately leads to group solidarity and integrity. focusing on the issue rather than the person. Sticking to the issue helps to reduce the size of the conflict and to focus on negotiating resolution rather than becoming entangled in personalities.

using the ‘Consensus-making process’ as the basis for reaching decisions and arriv- ing at solutions (Wheeler 8c Chinn 1989). Exploring options until one is found which everyone can accept tends to be more rewarding and growth producing than arriving at a decision using the ‘majority rules’ approach. It also constitutes moving away from actions that exert power over

individuals to actions that empower indi- viduals.

These are a few of the tactics that can be used in managing conflict constructively to produce positive outcomes. However, faculty have to recognise that this work needs to be on-going and is part and parcel of becoming an expert learner.

The change to a non-traditional approach to curriculum development is a process that chal- lenges the very essence of the educator’s teaching practices. Educators will be successful in making the change and in achieving the expected outcomes only if they engage in dia- logue and activities that are liberating both for themselves and the students. It is hoped that the strategies outlined in this paper can assist educa- tors in making such a transition. For nursing curricula to be meaningful to both educators and students, educators must reconceptualise their global approach to nursing education.

References

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Bevis E 0, Watson J 1989 Toward a caring curriculum: a new pedagogy for nursing. National League for Nursing, New York

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