Development of a Longitudinal Curricular Evaluation Framework for Intra- and Interprofessional Teamwork

Objectives: To describe the development and evaluation of a university-wide competency and evaluation framework for intra- and interprofessional education (IPE) teamwork.Methods: Development of the framework was based on existing literature and specific contexts of the schools within our university. Evaluation and program alignment regarding use of the framework were achieved through qualitative interviews with deans of the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy, and focused on how they evaluated student progression towards the university-wide teamwork competency. Interview data were analyzed using classical content analysis.Results: Despite efforts to carefully design the framework, interviews revealed that significant variation exists regarding when and how both IPE and team-based care are taught and evaluated across schools. Common barriers to interprofessional education included variations in teamwork practices across disciplines, scheduling challenges, and lack of resources for implementation. Recommendations for how to align teaching and evaluation activities with the framework are posed.Conclusions: Longitudinally tracking the development of interprofessional competencies within/across health professions schools requires careful planning and collaboration among institutional leaders, interprofessional educators, program evaluators, and students. The information gained from this process provides insights toward implementing future high-quality IPE in teamwork and other inter- and intraprofessional competencies, which may be helpful to others.

Políticas de tecnologia na educação no Brasil: Visão histórica e lições aprendidas

Brazilian initiatives aimed at the insertion of information and communication technologies (ICT) in K-12 education took their first steps in the 1970s, when several countries focused their efforts on the use of ICT in the educational context. Since the early 1980s, a number of public policies have been created that have given rise to various projects and programs developed at the national level. The objective of the article is to analyze these policies using the Four in Balance model resignified for the Brazilian reality. The methodology is based on a study of documents. The EDUCOM Project, the Immediate Action Program in Informatics in Education, and the national programs, PRONINFE and ProInfo, were analyzed. The results show that these projects and programs did not always balance the axes of vision, teacher and manager training, digital educational resources and infrastructure, and cross-curricular evaluation and research. From this analysis it was possible to highlight some lessons and suggestions for future public policies related to the implementation of technologies in education.

International expansion of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) curricular evaluation program

Eight journalism educational programs outside the United States are certified by the U.S.-based Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. A survey of journalism undergraduate program directors in the United States indicated that many respondents see opportunities for expanding this voluntary curriculum evaluation and endorsement as a way of spreading U.S. values, in particular to countries lacking press freedoms. However, other respondents worry about the cultural imperialism of imposing U.S. cultural norms and practices on those in other countries. And, some directors questioned the ability to apply standards equitably across all programs, in countries with different political and cultural environments. The results indicated a lack of consensus and the need for a thorough discussion about Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s role in promoting journalism education and practice around the globe and what forms that education should take.

Beyond the Technological Dimension of Edutainment

In this chapter, the authors propose a framework for carrying out an analysis of edutainment products from a curricular perspective. Although this framework has been developed for undertaking a curricular evaluation of edutainment, the chapter also incorporates some indicators that allow for evaluation of its playful dimension. Firstly, the different fields of research that support the framework are presented, such as the studies on: commercial video games, serious games and edutainment, and curricular materials (e.g. textbooks). This framework comprises four dimensions of analysis - formal, playful, curricular, and ethical - organized as an observation grid of edutainment products and a series of guidelines to use it. In each dimension the authors take into account a variable number of units of analysis, indicators, and evidences. Finally, the chapter offers some general conclusions to the evaluation process of edutainment, focusing on its appropriateness to specific curricular subjects and contexts.