The career staff: opportune alternative to carry out the process of curricular improvement

EDUMECENTRO 2022;14:e2373

RESEARCH PAPER

 

The career staff: opportune alternative to carry out the process of curricular improvement

El colectivo de carrera: alternativa oportuna para efectuar el proceso de perfeccionamiento curricular

 

Anabel Zurbano Cobas1* https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6867-04026
Alexander Jova García1 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0987-6725
Maitié Martín Caballero2 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6919-9407
Elzabet Rodríguez Jiménez 3 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7346-2906

 

1 University of Medical Sciences of Villa Clara. Faculty of Stomatology. Villa Clara. Cuba.
2 University of Medical Sciences of Villa Clara. Stomatological Clinic "Victoria de Santa Clara". Department of Prosthetics. Villa Clara. Cuba.
3 University of Medical Sciences of Villa Clara. School of Medicine. Department of Basic Physiological Biomedical Sciences. Villa Clara. Cuba.

 

*Corresponding author. Email: anabelzc@infomed.sld.cu

 

 

ABSTRACT

The career staff is an opportune alternative to carry out the process of curricular improvement and solve the problem of the interdisciplinary nexus, for which the need to assess the correspondence of the contents to be treated in the subjects and their logical and pedagogical articulation in cross-sectional sense. Due to its complexity and the demand for strengths that interfere with its correct performance, the authors of this research paper share their considerations about certain elements to be reinforced, where integrative processes governed by expertise are imposed in the operation of this organizational subsystem for methodological work in favor of academic excellence.

MeSH: schools, dental; programs; professional development; education, medical.

RESUMEN

El colectivo de carrera resulta una alternativa oportuna para efectuar el proceso de perfeccionamiento curricular y resolver el problema del nexo interdisciplinar, por lo que se impone la necesidad de valorar la correspondencia de los contenidos a tratar en las asignaturas y su articulación lógica y pedagógica en sentido vertical. Por su complejidad y la demanda de fortalezas que interfieren en su correcta actuación, los autores de esta comunicación comparten sus consideraciones acerca de determinados elementos a reforzar, donde se imponen procesos integradores regidos por la experticia en el funcionamiento de este subsistema organizativo para el trabajo metodológico, en pos de alcanzar la excelencia académica.

DeSC: facultades de Odontología; programas; superación profesional; educación médica.

 

 

Submitted: 24/03/2022
Accepted: 24/11/2022

 

 

The university is par excellence the social institution with the greatest capacity to preserve, develop and disseminate culture in its broadest sense, so it is to be expected that it put the most advanced knowledge at the service and safeguard of humanity in the most comprehensive and inclusive possible way. For this, it is essential that in the teaching-learning process the guidelines of the curricular designs of the careers in general are fulfilled, and in particular, in the Dentistry degree; for this, the methodological work carried out by teachers is essential to raise the quality of the teaching learning process.

According to article 131 of the Regulations for Teaching and Methodological Work in Higher Education Centers. Resolution 47 of 2022:(1) "The methodological work that is carried out collectively at each of the organizational levels of the educational teaching process, has as its essential feature the system approach and prioritizes educational work from instruction. Its content must contribute to the preparation of teachers, support staff and managers to meet the objectives declared in the study plans with the required quality and meet the specific needs registered at each organizational level, among other aspects.

In the aforementioned resolution,(1) the following are identified as organizational levels of the educational teaching process: a) career staff; b) academic year staff; c) disciplinary and interdisciplinary staff in the necessary cases; and d) subject staff.

The career staff has, among other functions, to contribute to the fulfillment of the general objectives of the career and its continuous improvement, and to propose to the dean or head of department, as the case may be: the plans of the teaching process up to the subject level, the organization of all the subjects by teaching periods in each academic year, the subjects that cannot be taken as drag, the objectives of each academic year for each cohort of students taking the professional model as a starting point, and ensuring the adequate implementation of the curricular strategies This imposes the need to assess the correspondence of the contents and their logical and pedagogical articulation in across-sectional sense.

From the analysis of the main functions of the career staff, its complex it and the numerous strengths that demand its fulfillment are revealed; in the opinion of these authors, the most important: expertise, understood as the combination of experience and expertise. Whoever has expertise in a subject has knowledge derived from practice extended over time and with the ability to carry out certain actions, so this group must be directed by a teacher with a high scientific-pedagogical preparation, with experience and development in the field of medical education.

The teaching direction of the Ministry of Public Health has indicated the need for the operation of this structure as an option to evaluate the training process. Despite this, it has not been possible to undertake systematic work in this regard at Villa Clara University of Medical Sciences, and particularly in its Faculty of Dentistry. There, the need for this organizational level to fulfill the functions established for its work has been declared; the institutional will exists for it to be so, but the expected achievements have not been obtained: evidenced difficulties have been detected in the controls and in observations in educational practice, expressed in spaces for debates such as year staff and boards of directors, which affects with singularity in the rest of the methodological levels and in the functioning of these instances, for example: it has not been possible to promote interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in the face of disciplinary isolation and the thematic disarticulation prevails, especially in its methodological and investigative aspects.

Scientific development calls for a process of content integration, of conceptual and methodological interpenetration of established scientific disciplines, which makes their limits disappear and shows an important production of knowledge in border areas; also where vertical integration is manifested, as a tendency of scientific activity to get involved in various fields of social practice. These scientific trends have their curricular reflection in the need for multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to teaching content and activities carried out for training purposes, as necessary conditions for the preparation of professionals capable of identifying and solving complex problems in their work, according to Santos Martínez et al.(2)

The comprehensive discipline allows the student to identify the same object from different languages or representations. This contributes to being aware of the existing connections in science itself and these disciplines are not represented as a curricular obligation to overcome independently of one another. In contemporary medical education, the need to achieve an adequate integration of knowledge is universally accepted. However, it is contradictory that there is no clarity regarding the terminological and methodological components of such an important aspect, according to the study by Grau León et al.,(3) which is an element to take into account in the analysis of the results. Indicators hindering your success.

Given the transformations that have taken place in the current university environment, both the Ministry of Higher Education and its institutions have conceived as a priority the intensification of methodological work at all levels where it is developed.(4)

In medical universities, the study plans, consistent with the professional models of each health career, articulate the academic, labor and research components and conceive the teaching-learning process as a process of activity and communication. In them, in balance with the more academic forms of teaching, the forms of education at work appear, which in addition to promoting more meaningful learning, while engaging the subject himself in its acquisition, promote acting in the formation of values. , of ethics and professional conduct.(5) In fact, the participation of students in the actual fulfillment of the mission of the hospital or primary health care institution, which includes dental clinics, is a peculiar element that distinguishes their training process from that of other professionals.

The Dentistry career staff has a work methodology that starts from the analysis of the health problems to be solved by the graduate, in line with the exit objectives expressed in the professional profile, which requires a detailed analysis of its model and of all parts of the training plan; this allows the study of the individual affected by a disease and the actions that the future professional must develop for its correct diagnosis, treatment, health promotion, preventive and rehabilitation actions that make up the comprehensive stomatological performance of the future professional.

Academic excellence poses enormous, complex challenges that require changing ideas and practices. Among the strengths considered as indicators of excellence and quality of higher education institutions in Cuba, the professional degree achieved by its teachers stands out. This reality justifies the importance of undertaking an adequate methodological work for the improvement of the teaching-learning process from the career group, in this case, Dentistry, in a more relevant way to its curriculum and responding to an institutional and ministerial need, but, In order to achieve it, the authors of this communication are of the opinion that the methodological work that supports multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches of the teaching contents in the verticality of the curricular process is necessary and pertinent from the career staff with the articulation of the other methodological levels proposed by Ministerial Resolution No. 47/2022.

 

BIBLIOGRAFIC REFERENCES

1. Ministerio de Educación Superior. Reglamento para el Trabajo Docente y Metodológico en los Centros de Educación Superior Resolución Ministerial No. 47/2022. La Habana: MES; 2022.

2. Santos Martínez R, Alfonso Hidalgo A, Quintanilla Opizo O, Chaviano Herrera O, García Ávila I, Valdés Utrera JR. Trabajo metodológico: reclamo para lograr interdisciplinariedad desde el colectivo año de la carrera de Medicina. EDUMECENTRO [Internet]. 2017 [citado 20/10/2021];9(1):[aprox. 14 p.]. Disponible en: http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2077-28742017000100011&lng=es

3. Grau León IB, Barciela González Longoria MD, Rosales Reyes S, Peguero Morejón H. El trabajo docente metodológico en la Facultad de Estomatología de la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana (UCMH). Educ Med Super [Internet]. 2015 [citado 20/10/2021];29(4):[aprox. 10 p.]. Disponible en: http://www.ems.sld.cu/index.php/ems/article/view/597

4. Martínez-Díaz PA, Alea-González M, Linares-Cordero M, González-Rangel MÁ. Propuesta metodológica para el perfeccionamiento del trabajo de los colectivos de asignatura en las carreras de Medicina y Estomatología. Rev Haban Cienc Med [Internet]. 2017 [citado 20/10/2021];16(2):[aprox. 7 p.]. Disponible en: http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1729-519X2017000200013&lng=es

5. Jimenez-Yong Y, Santos-Prieto D, Véliz-Concepción O, Jiménez-Mesa L. Modelo de evaluación para la educación en el trabajo desde la asignatura Ortodoncia. EDUMECENTRO [Internet]. 2019 [citado 24/10/2021];11(1):[aprox. 13 p.]. Disponible en: http://www.revedumecentro.sld.cu/index.php/edumc/article/view/1161/html_412

 

 

Declaration of interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

 

 

Contribution of the authors

Anabel Zurbano Cobas and Alexander Jova García: conceptualized the topic, analyzed the bibliography and wrote the final draft.
Maitié Martín Caballero and Elzabet Rodríguez Jiménez: they did bibliographic searches, analyzed them and limited them by the Vancouver style.

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