Twelve tips for designing curricula that support the development of adaptive expertise

Abstract

An essential component of expertise is a clinician’s ability to adapt to uncertain, complex, or novel situations while maintaining their competence in routine situations. Adaptive expertise provides a framework for understanding and developing experts who have the skills to effectively balance and support these dimensions of work using both procedural and conceptual knowledge. It is important for educators to understand that often the training which fosters adaptive expertise does not require new tools or approaches, but rather a reconceptualization of training using many of the same instruction and assessment formats already available. The twelve tips discussed in this paper showcase ways in which education can be transformed to support the development of adaptive expertise including the significance of instruction that combines various forms for knowledge, the value of productive struggle, and shifting the design of assessments to support learning and performance beyond retention and direct application.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maria Mylopoulos

Dr. Maria Mylopoulos, PhD, is a Scientist at The Wilson Centre and Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto.

Naomi Steenhof

Ms. Naomi Steenhof, B.Sc.Phm, MHPE, is a staff pharmacist at the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada and holds a Master’s degree in Health Professions Education from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Her interest lies in exploring the effects of productive failure on students’ development of adaptive expertise.

Amit Kaushal

Dr. Amit Kaushal, MD, MScCH, is a staff nephrologist at the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada.

Nicole N. Woods

Dr. Nicole Woods, PhD, is a Scientist at The Wilson Centre and Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto.