School News Update
Curriculum Renewal Update
By Brenda Beagan
We’re going to try some exciting changes – like focusing intensely on foundational knowledge, professional practice, and fieldwork skills for the first four weeks of Term 1, before moving into physical health and occupational development through the lifespan.
The good news: there are lots of checks and balances in place when making any curriculum changes, so we don’t overlook anything, or make mistakes. In January the School received the last of 10 levels of approval for our curriculum renewal, from the School, to the university, to the provinces.
The hard news is that the pace of change at universities is glacial. And we usually need to finalize the details of program delivery well over a year in advance. Things like changes to course names and descriptions, room bookings, securing lab spaces, allocating precious resources like tutor time and simulation spaces. So, approval in January 2024 is too late to have the renewed curriculum in place for students entering in September 2024. We have decided to delay starting until September 2025.
The good news (again!): we will be SO ready in September 2025! We are now immersed in the details of coordinating content across 21 new courses. We have hammered out what content belongs where, and now a committee is reviewing the entire curriculum to ensure sequential learning of knowledge and skills and to confirm any gaps previously identified are addressed. We keep returning to input received from field consultations to make sure we haven’t missed anything. And we are mapping out an evaluation of the new program before we even begin.
We’re going to try some exciting changes – like focusing intensely on foundational knowledge, professional practice, and fieldwork skills for the first four weeks of Term 1, before moving into physical health and occupational development through the lifespan. And students will be thrilled to have a practice integration course from the first week they enter the program.
We’ll keep you informed, and we hope you will continue to share your ideas and questions with us!