Theoretical Foundations of Health Professional Education

• • Context of contemporary health professional education
  • - Professional standards for practice
  • - Accreditation of health professionals
  • - Interprofessional practice
  • - Quality and safety in healthcare
  • - Promoting equity for First Peoples
  • - Diverse teaching and learning environments (i.e., simulated, classroom, real practice environments)
  • Foundational theories and models of health professional education
  • - Adult learning theory
  • - Behaviourism
  • - Constructivism
  • - Reflective learning and reflective practice
  • - Experiential and experience-based learning
  • - Transformational learning
  • - Workplace learning theory
  • Contemporary approaches to health professional education
  • - Active learning
  • - Authentic learning and authentic assessment
  • - Teaching critical thinking, clinical reasoning and clinical decision-making (i.e., CPL, IPL, PBL)
  • - Competency-based training and assessment
  • - Interprofessional education
  • Ethical, moral and legal issues in health professional education
  • - Ethical, moral and legal dimensions of professional practice
  • - Ethical, moral and legal obligations of educating health professionals
  • - Exploring ethical, moral and legal aspects of health professional practice through education
  • Becoming an inclusive educator
  • - Understanding the impact of difference on learning and teaching (i.e., culture, language, disability)
  • - Respecting different preferences for teaching and learning
  • - Designing engaging learning activities for inclusivity

In order to enrol in this subject, you must be accepted into one of the following degrees:

Additional requirements

No additional requirements

Health professional education occurs in diverse and complex health settings. It is a requirement of the health professional educator to understand the context of contemporary health professional education, foundational theories and models, and contemporary approaches to health professional education in order to provide rich learning experiences. This subject helps you to learn about learner-centered approaches to facilitating health professional education in diverse settings. You will explore ethical, moral and legal issues impacting on health professional education, and critically analyse the concept inclusive education in relation to your practice.

To that end, you will first explore teaching approaches and models and theories of learning in the context of contemporary health professional education. You will then explore ethical, moral and legal issues as these relate to your practice as an educator of health professionals. This will include a critical evaluation of your own teaching and learning practice. Scholarly evidence will be combined with practical community wisdom as important sources of your learning.

The overall aim is therefore to provide you with a firm foundation of the theories, applications and priorities informing contemporary health professional education, and support you to relate and apply knowledge to your context.

In order to successfully complete this unit, students need to complete and submit two assessment tasks. A minimum combined total grade of both assessment tasks of 50% is required to pass this unit. Students will be awarded a final grade result. The assessment strategy used aims to progressively develop your knowledge and skills to enable you to meet the learning outcomes for this unit; in other words, it supports your learning as well as providing a means for you to demonstrate your learning. In order to develop the knowledge, comprehension and skills required to achieve the learning outcomes and Graduate Attributes, you will: - demonstrate knowledge of learning theories through participation in online discussion forums with your peers, and consider the ethical, moral and legal issues relevant to different health professional education contexts in a written assessment; - demonstrate further understanding by critically examining your own beliefs, behaviours and teaching practices, to ensure the provision of a safe and inclusive learning environment, as part of the final assessment task. Each assessment task in this unit will be assessed according to criteria and standards that are simplified and summarised in the form of a rubric. The rationale for the use of rubrics in this unit is to provide you with a clear statement of the performance expectations for each assessment task, and to provide clarity around what you need to do to succeed. Further, the use of rubrics aims to provide you with helpful feedback about the quality of your work.

• Written Assignment - Requires students to demonstrate fundamental knowledge about learning theories relevant to health professional education contexts, while taking into consideration ethical, moral and legal issues as it relates to their practice. (40%)
• Written Reflective Assignment - Requires students to critically examine their own beliefs, behaviours and teaching practices in the context of health professional education, to ensure they provide a safe and inclusive learning environment. (60%)

For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).