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. 2019 Oct 15;36(5):Doc48.
doi: 10.3205/zma001256. eCollection 2019.

A teaching coordinator's nightmare?

Andreas Winkelmann  1
Affiliations

A teaching coordinator's nightmare?

Andreas Winkelmann. GMS J Med Educ. .

Abstract
in English, German

This field report compares the planning and coordination effort of an anatomy teaching coordinator in a subject-oriented standard curriculum with a cross-subject, modularly organized reformed curriculum at a faculty with 600 medical students per year. The distribution of the anatomical teaching over several locations and modules in all semesters, as well as the rotation of these modules within the semester, results in an increased amount of coordination of teaching content and in particular a very complicated timetable. Appropriate and nevertheless non-overlapping allocation of anatomy teaching staff in this timetable is a special challenge. There is no question that interdisciplinary curricula, as called for in the "Master Plan for Medical Studies 2020", represent progress. However, an increased amount of work in the teaching coordination of the subjects must be taken into account in the realization of such curricula in large faculties, irrespective of the efforts required to convert to a new curriculum.

Dieser Erfahrungsbericht vergleicht den Planungs- und Koordinationsaufwand eines Lehrkoordinators der Anatomie in einem Fächer-orientierten Regelstudiengang mit einem Fächer-übergreifenden, modular organisierten Modellstudiengang an einer Fakultät mit 600 Medizinstudierenden pro Jahr. Durch die Verteilung der anatomischen Lehre über mehrere Standorte und über Module in allen Semestern sowie Rotation dieser Module innerhalb der Semester entsteht ein erhöhter inhaltlicher Koordinationsaufwand und insbesondere ein sehr komplizierter Stundenplan. Die sinnvolle und trotzdem überschneidungsfreie Einteilung der Lehrenden der Anatomie in diesen Stundenplan wird dabei zu einer besonderen Herausforderung. Es steht außer Frage, dass Fächer-übergreifende Curricula, wie sie im „Masterplan Medizinstudium 2020“ gefordert werden, einen Fortschritt darstellen. Bei der Realisierung solcher Curricula in großen Fakultäten muss aber, auch unabhängig vom Aufwand für die Umstellung auf ein neues Curriculum, ein erhöhter Arbeitsaufwand in der Lehrkoordination der Fächer berücksichtigt werden.

Keywords: interdisciplinary teaching; modularity; reformed curriculum; standard curriculum; teaching coordination.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author declares that he has no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Use of the same dissecting room in the summer semester 2010 (above) and in the summer semester 2015 (below). The 5 large lines represent the weekdays Monday to Friday, each divided into time slots from 8AM to 7PM, the columns represent 16 semester weeks (2010 in week 15/16: Occupancy by the state exam “Physikum”). Names have been replaced by “NN”.
In 2010, the room was allocated to continuous dissection courses on Wednesdays and Thursdays, a neuroanatomy course on Mondays, and a course for dental students on Tuesdays. In 2015 courses for dental students occupy Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. All other courses in various colours are MSM courses in semesters 1-8, including a continuous dissection course on Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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