Relevance of curriculum to practice
المؤلف:
Rob Cowdroy & Anthony Williams
المصدر:
Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Assessment
الجزء والصفحة:
P91-C9
2025-06-14
590
Relevance of curriculum to practice
Applying knowledge in practice requires a combination of various types of thinking (e.g. linear, lateral) to make the essential connections between theory and application in practice. In our research we have called this essential connecting thinking component "facilitative thinking", i.e., that facilitates connection of theory to application. Facilitative thinking includes making connections between multiple abstract theoretical constructs as well as engaging in a linear analytical thinking process, and is therefore an expansion of what is generally referred to as "process thinking".
Increasingly, however, practice is a thinking activity itself (e.g. making informed decisions) so that thinking becomes behavior ("thinking as behavior": the act of making a decision), with an array of attendant behavioral conditions such as perception, morale and motivation not usually associated with cognitive approaches to thinking. These attendant conditions are not usually included in what is referred to as "outcomes", and thinking as behavior is therefore an expansion of what is usually meant by "learning outcomes".
This distinction between facilitative thinking and thinking as behavior is of fundamental importance to professional education, business education and the sciences (Crick & Cowdroy, 1999; Eraut, 2000). For instance, the essential ability of an architect is not measured in terms of what is built or in drawings depicting what is to be built, but in terms of the complex rationale that constitutes the design (of which the drawings and buildings are manifestations). Similarly, the essential ability of a medical practitioner is measured in terms of prognosis which is a complex rationale, informed by diagnosis and anticipating particular outcomes, from which treatment follows. In the sciences, the essential ability is not the experiment (even in the most exotic research environment) but the complex rationale that prognosticates outcomes ("the hypothesis" and "framing of the research question") from which that experiment follows. Finally, in business, the essential ability is not the investment, merger or marketing strategy undertaken, but the complex rationale that anticipates outcomes, from which the decision to invest and the investment itself (etc.) both follow.
The focus on thinking here does not deny the importance of the associated physical actions that characterize what an architect, medical practitioner, scientist or business manager do in practice; the thrust of the argument is that development of the respective physical abilities in higher education can only be effective if it includes explicit development of the associated thinking abilities.
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