Assessing clinical reasoning: a method to monitor its development in a PBL curriculum

The aim of this study was to develop and trial a method to monitor the evolution of clinical reasoning in a PBL curriculum that is suitable for use in a large medical school. Termed Clinical Reasoning Problems (CRPs), it is based on the notion that clinical reasoning is dependent on the identification and correct interpretation of certain critical clinical features. Each problem consists of a clinical scenario comprising presentation, history and physical examination. Based on this information, subjects are asked to nominate the two most likely diagnoses and to list the clinical features that they considered in formulating their diagnoses, indicating whether these features supported or opposed the nominated diagnoses. Students at different levels of medical training completed a set of 10 CRPs as well as the Diagnostic Thinking Inventory, a self-reporting questionnaire designed to assess reasoning style. Responses were scored against those of a reference group of general practitioners. Results indicate that the CRPs are an easily administered, reliable and valid assessment of clinical reasoning, able to successfully monitor its development throughout medical training. Consequently, they can be employed to assess clinical reasoning skill in individual students and to evaluate the success of undergraduate medical schools in providing effective tuition in clinical reasoning.

Principles versus artifacts in computer science curriculum design

Computer Science is a subject which has difficulty in marketing itself. Further, pinning down a standard curriculum is difficult-there are many preferences which are hard to accommodate. This paper argues the case that part of the problem is the fact that, unlike more established disciplines, the subject does not clearly distinguish the study of principles from the study of artifacts. This point was raised in Curriculum 2001 discussions, and debate needs to start in good time for the next curriculum standard. This paper provides a starting point for debate, by outlining a process by which principles and artifacts may be separated, and presents a sample curriculum to illustrate the possibilities. This sample curriculum has some positive points, though these positive points are incidental to the need to start debating the issue. Other models, with a less rigorous ordering of principles before artifacts, would still gain from making it clearer whether a specific concept was fundamental, or a property of a specific technology. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Broadening conceptions of curriculum for young people: Reports from three student-teachers on exchange

Research reports prepared by three Australian preservice teachers--Paula Shaw, Chris Sharp and Scott McDonald--undertaking their teacher education practicum in Canada, form the basis of this paper. The reports provide critical insights into three aspects of education for young people in both Canada and Australia. They also provide critical insight into the ways in which a practicum research project, along with the opportunities afforded through an international experience, enabled the preservice teachers to broaden their understanding of the curriculum for young people, of issues relevant to the diverse needs of young people, and of themselves and their priorities as teachers. The preservice teachers investigated three topics: attempts to reduce homophobia in schools; the presence or absence of Aboriginal content in the school curricula in British Columbia and Queensland; and "schools-within-schools" as a means to meet the needs of diverse student populations. Linda Farr Darling from the University of British Columbia provides a response to the three reports.

Black and white and re(a)d all over again: Indigenous minstrelsy in contemporary Canadian and Australian theatre

This essay considers processes by which community identities are challenged by discussing the use of whiteface as an activist strategy in recent indigenous theatre in Canada and Australia. To understand whiteface, I employ Susan Gubar's notion of racechange, processes that test and even transgress racial borders. I also situate whiteface in relation to the history of blackface minstrelsy. Noting the ways these racial performances affirm the hierarchies of color and how power becomes invested in such color codings, the essay highlights indigenous employment of whiteface as a potential form of critical historiography. I then analyze how whiteface functions in two productions, Daniel David Moses's Almighty Voice and His Wife (1991) in Canada and the Queensland Theatre Company's 2000 revival of George Landen Dann's Fountains Beyond in Australia. My analysis posits that such indigenous performances of whiteface can affirm the identity of the marginalized other even as they destabilize the fixity of race and its meanings.