Embedding Core Concepts within the Curriculum
Using the core concepts as the basis or cornerstone of a formal
curriculum provides a theoretical framework for understanding how drugs
work so that the learners will form connections with critical aspects of
therapeutics. This could be particularly relevant within an integrated
curriculum in which pharmacology does not appear as a separate
discipline, creating the added risk that key concepts may be lost
[49]. In this case, educators can thread core concepts throughout a
structure based on organ systems and reinforced with many examples.
More broadly, though, any formal curriculum can be considered to include
both explicit and hidden or implicit curriculum, with the latter also
recognised as important [50]. Raising the core concepts of
pharmacology from the hidden curriculum into the explicit curriculum may
be one of the most important steps in helping ensure that students
graduate with the required cognitive toolkit.
The move towards assessments focusing on understanding and applying
knowledge rather than simple recall demonstrates the increasing value
placed on higher-order thinking. In a health and life sciences course in
The Netherlands, Wilhelmus and Drukarch [51] have shown that
students tend to score better on ‘knows’ rather than ‘knows how’
questions and on pharmacodynamic rather than pharmacokinetics topics. It
is tempting to speculate that a core concepts approach may help learners
focus on application and understanding rather than rote memorisation of
lists of drugs and their mechanisms, an idea articulated in the Vision
and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education report [52].
Yet another way of thinking about curriculum is the
Intended-Enacted-Experienced curriculum [53]. In this way of
thinking, a core-concepts approach could be incorporated into the
enacted part of the curriculum without any need to reform the formal or
intended curriculum. In this case, the way the instructor enacts the
curriculum, namely the way they explain the concepts and link them
together, reflects the core concepts definitions. For example, using the
core concept of drug target and then linking that to drug-target
interactions and mechanism of action shows how these concepts are
distinct but related, and this format could be illustrated with multiple
examples (Table 2) of relevance to the cohort.
Table 2. Illustration of the relationship between certain core concepts
shown with examples.