The Process of Reforming the Introduction to
Public Health Curriculum
by Proloy Barua,BRAC JPGSPH, BRAC University In this reflection, I am
going to share my learning experience from the Trans4m-PH Project during
last six month since January 2021 while I have
participated in reforming the Introduction to Public Health (hereafter,
Intro to PH) curriculum for MPH Program at Games P Grant School of
Public Health (JPGSPH), BRAC University. In the
Trans4m-PH Project, there are four major independent components: (i)
Public Health Competency-based Curriculum, (ii) Public Health Learning
Methodologies, (iii) Faculty Facilitator
Development, (iv) Faculty Professional Skills Training, for reforming
the Intro to PH curriculum. Between January 18 and June 14, 2021, we
were taught the first two components. So, I am going
to share my learning experience from the first two components in which I
will mainly focus on my learning experience on the reforming process of
the Intro to PH curriculum. Interactive remote
coaching After a thorough orientation on the Trans4m-PH project in
January 2021, I have participated in a series of remote training
and/discussion sessions which were the main ingredients that
helped enhance my knowledge and experience on a new topic like reforming
a curriculum. These are: (a) weekly meeting with course Design
Consultant: Mikhail Islam, (b) weekly meeting with
technical or academic or technical partner (Maastricht University), (c)
weekly internal meeting with JPGSPH Team Members: Adeepto Intisar Ahmed,
Nibedita Sarkar, and Proloy Barua, and (d)
regular meetings with BRAC JPGSPH ERASMUS+ Team: Tahsin Madani Hossain,
Adrita Rahman, Selima Sara Kabir. Now, I briefly discuss the process
that we followed to reform the Intro to PH
curriculum in the following sections. Principles of reforming curriculum
At the very first day the Design Consultant, named Mikhail Islam, gave
us general overview on reforming the Intro to PH
curriculum. Most importantly, he explained the fundamental/principles of
the designing Intro to PH course, how it was designed initially and so
on that actually laid the foundation of
reforming Intro to PH curriculum. So far, I remember, the redesigned
curriculum should be: transformative, competency-based, developing
country oriented, prioritize developing country public
health problem such as child nutrition, maternal, neonatal, and child
health (MNCH), health problem of adolescent girls and boys, explicitly
community centric solutions by prioritizing
community preferences. ensuring better health outcomes through
understanding community health context during immersive fieldwork. The
curriculum should also focus on more gender equitable
frugal solutions of complex health issues of the vulnerable community
people in the developing world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA),
south and south-east Asia, and Latin America. To
reiterate, the reformed course will be experiential learning oriented.
So, there will be more field work (e.g., urban slum visits) at the very
beginning of the course instead of many lectures
in the classroom. Finally, the reformed curriculum will promote
community centric public health solutions in developing country context
instead of developed country context. It is important to
note here that initially the curriculum was based on health problems in
developed countries. Instruction for populating a DNA Form We have used
a DNA Form template for reforming Intro to PH
curriculum. This DNA form included four basic pillars of course
curriculum such as (i) skills learning outcomes, (ii) learning content,
(iii) learning sub-content, and (iv) learning
methodologies. The Design Consultant gave advice and instruction to
JPGSPH Team Members regarding the process to fill in the DNA form. For
instance, we were supposed to copy all four
components: skills, contents, sub-contents, learning methodologies from
the “2017 Intro to PH Syllabus”. This means we actually reformed the
2017 curriculum. In addition, we were instructed to
review the 2021 Intro to PH Syllabus and bring relevant contents to fill
the DNA form. We were hardly allowed to add any new skills and contents
but rearrange or simplify them. Because, the
Design Consultant instructed us to provide good reasons for adding any
new skills into existing documents. Populating the DNA Form As
instructed, I along with other team members copied all
relevant components mostly from the 2017 Syllabus and filled in DNA
form. For instance, we juxtaposed all skills, session contents,
corresponding sub-contents from Day-1 to Day-11. It is
important to note here that the duration of the Intro to PH course is
only two weeks. We followed the “Intro to PH course daily Guide”
developed in 2017 and 2021 to fill in DNA form with
corresponding learning methodologies of each session. Additionally,
Teaching Fellows (TFs) of previous years gave their valuable inputs to
explain learning methodologies. We also applied our
own experience to elaborate learning methodologies in consultation with
Design Consultant. To progress with the DNA Form appropriately, we
followed a collaborative working process between
JPGSPH Team Members, Design Consultant, and Academic/Technical Partner.
Figure-1 illustrates a typical working process between teams to reform
the Intro to PH curriculum which is pretty much
self-explanatory. Collaboration within JPGSPH Team Members Following
instructions of the Design Consultant, Team Members virtually meet every
Sunday to solve assigned tasks by sharing the
responsibilities. The team members are supposed to complete their
assigned tasks individually before Sunday's meeting and then update each
other in the group meeting. Team members need to do
some brainstorming to solve some assigned tasks together. For instance,
our first assignment given by the Design Consultant was to brainstorm
and prepare a few bullet points on these three
questions: (a) why is this course essential in relation to /for the
given community? (b) why is this course essential for students who want
to professionally work with the community? (c) what
are the professional skills students will develop in course to apply to
improve the community (via the course)? Thus, the Team used to prepare a
draft document (say Draft_0) to be submitted to
the Design Consultant before the Weekly Meeting through Project Manager:
Adrita Rahman. Figure 1: Graphical illustration of a typical working
process between teams to reform the Intro to PH
curriculum Collaboration between JPGSPH Team and Design Consultant The
JPGSPH Team Members used to meet the Design Consultant every Wednesday
with prior appointment to discuss the draft
document (say Draft_0 or Draft_1). The duration of this meeting is
ninety minutes. In this meeting, the Design Consultant reviews the draft
course contents and gives comments and suggestions.
Thus, a draft document is updated from zero draft (Draft_0) to draft one
(Draft_1). The Team usually gets feedback and clarifications on draft
documents to proceed with draft documents. The
Team also has the privilege to discuss any unsolved issues in the
internal team meeting from the previous week. The Team also discusses
any feedback from Technical Partner (UM) on the draft
document with the Design Consultant. It should be mentioned here that
the JPGSPH Team usually spends more time with Design Consultant than
Academic Partner (UM). Because it takes some more
time (say 2-3 weeks) to prepare a draft document to be shared with the
UM. So, sometimes we have to postpone a pre-scheduled meeting if the
document is not ready to share with the UM. Figure
2: Word clouds showing key words used in the reformed curriculum
Collaboration between JPGSPH Team and Technical Partner (Maastricht
University or UM) The JPGSPH Team Members used to meet the
UM Team every Monday for an interactive remote coaching. Typically, we
used to start the meeting by updating each other and sometimes we used
to present our work. The UM Team Members: Anja
Krumeich, Esther Jurgens, used to review our draft document and give
critical feedback on draft course contents. Their mentorship guided the
JPGSPH Team to proceed with reforming the Intro to
PH curriculum. For instance, the UM Team reviewed our draft DNA form and
added a few more new skills (e.g., conceptual skill, collaborative
skill) into the document. This process will be
continued until the Intro to PH curriculum is reformed.