Organization of the Curriculum

In order to implement CBVE successfully, a transformation of both the educational and the clinical organization is required, which takes time and perseverance. Student centeredness, fostering a professional learning culture allowing the exchange of performance-relevant information, and active student participation should be the principal guidelines when designing and redesigning CBVE curricula. The following guidelines could help create a professional learning climate that aligns with longitudinal expertise development in veterinary education:

Faculty Development

Providing meaningful and effective narrative feedback after observing students’ performance places high demands on supervisors’ feedback skills (Govaerts, van de Wiel, and van der Vleuten, 2013). Therefore, faculty development programs are crucial in mitigating the challenges of competency-based education in veterinary curricula. These faculty development programs may focus on the following topics:

• Information about using low-stakes assessment instruments should be provided to document performance-relevant information (which instrument, how applied, and when?).

• Supervisors working within a learning environment are professionals themselves. We suggest that organizations invest in creating a culture in which supervisors are used to seek and provide feedback on their own performance.

• Information should be provided about how supervisors’ feedback-giving behavior in performance evaluations is influenced by a variety of factors (Bok et al., 2016).

• The faculty should be informed about the importance of providing high-quality, meaningful feedback on all relevant competency domains. By creating longitudinal, trustworthy relationships, supervisors would be able to follow up on their previously provided feedback and better evaluate students’ development over time (van der Zwet, 2014).