Curriculum Development: Foundations and Modern Advances in Graduate Medical Education

Curriculum development has undergone many transitions since the inception of medical education in the United States in the 1800’s. In this chapter, we briefly review the history of curriculum development in medical education. We discuss the landmark models of curriculum development including the concept of a curriculum map and Harden’s SPICES model of educational strategy, detail the six steps of Kern’s foundational framework, and provide an overview of the PRISMS strategy. We address the importance of adult learning theory and the advancing understanding of education for the millennial generation, including implementation of the flipped classroom model of education. Finally, we turn our focus on contemporary applications of curriculum design, including the application of simulation to medical education, the rise of massive open online courses (MOOC), and the implementation of free open access medical education (FOAM) within undergraduate and graduate medical curricula.