Framework

✦Preserving the Social Contract: Translating Academic Education into Professional Practice through Contemporary Cognitive Theories is an early glimpse into the emerging opusomni ecosystemTM.

✦ABSTRACT

Preserving the Social Contract:

Under the Social Contract, the general will has afforded lawyers and doctors the privilege of professional self-regulation in exchange for their commitment to serve the public interest. The public good is served when members of these professions possess at least minimum competency skills and ethical behaviors which in turn preserve public trust. A growing sense of public mistrust begins to erode the autonomy and status of lawyers and doctors to self-regulate. Preserving self-regulation requires the integration of practical experience along with traditional theoretical pedagogy to ensure minimum professional competency skills and ethical behaviors are learned by every member. How can academic institutions and accreditation organizations tell whether learning has occurred? Understanding how traditional theoretical pedagogy translates into professional practice becomes a central issue for assessing whether learning has occurred, and if so, how much learning has occurred as measured during performance of professional activities. This work examines five contemporary cognitive theories and their application to the legal practicum and medical residency including: Ecological Psychology, Situated Cognition and Communities of Practice, Distributed Cognition or the Historical-Cultural Approach, Activity Theory, and Talent Development Theory. The cognitive theories are examined in light of the core competency skills and ethical behaviors identified in the ABA’s MacCrate Report for law and the ACGME's Outcome Project . . .

✦The early work under Preserving the Social Contract continues to evolve as the opusomni ecosystemTM.
✦Specifically, Purple ForestTM, the application to drive achievement of education and work force competency skills, applies to audiology, clinical and translational research, dentistry, dietetics, engineering, law, medicine, nurse practitioner, occupational therapy, optometry, pharmacy, physical therapy, speech-language pathology, teacher, and students in K-12 education. Purple ForestTM applies to all competency-based professional, trade, and guild occupations now in existence or emerging in the future to meet our changing work force demands.
✦Purple ForestTM also spurs the emergence, development, and advancement of self-regulated professions. As such, Purple ForestTM applies to emerging professions as well as those undergoing a paradigm shift from “content-based education” towards “competency-based education.”
✦Please visit Purple ForestTM for additional applications and information about Purple ForestTM.
✦Whereas, a-tekoTM, the application for health and well-being, applies to the general population as well as patients and caregivers seeking education, training, and compliance approaches for healthy living and well-being.
✦Please visit a-tekoTM for additional applications and information about a-tekoTM.

opusomniTM

To download your courtesy copy of Preserving the Social Contract by Beth Ann Wright, J.D., OTR/L, CFE, please click on the above icon.