The ability to change the curriculum is one of the most powerful tools in a school’s toolkit. Whether motivated by new research findings, changing societal needs, technological advancements, or a fundamental shift in educational philosophy, the need to adapt the curriculum is constant and inevitable.
While many models exist to explain curriculum change, few describe the processes that can facilitate or impede this transformation. The present article examines how a medical college’s implementation of an updated curriculum was hindered by the same forces that stifle most initiatives to change.
Changing the curriculum takes time, money, and leadership. The success of curriculum reform depends on people’s capacity to participate. Leadership, to be productive and sustainable, must spread beyond the few pioneers that have a passion for change. This can be done through training, mentoring, and creating organizational structures that promote learning during curriculum change.
Another obstacle to curriculum reform is the inability of teachers to apply the proposed curricular changes to their actual teaching situations. Despite the emphasis on teaching skills and lab techniques in professional development programs, most training remains generic and is not directly related to the specific content of the curriculum.
Finally, both clinical and basic science faculty cited resistance to change and feelings of territorialism as potential challenges to revising the curriculum. These obstacles can be addressed through targeted training and activities that model the desired pedagogy and provide opportunities to implement the new curriculum in real teaching situations.