Improving Teaching Methods in a Dental School

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Dentistry is one of the most important branches in medicine. It deals with various mouth and maxilla diseases and studies their possible treatment, prevention, and diagnoses. Without any doubts, proper hygiene of the mouth and care about teeth are very important issues to consider. We communicate with different people day by day.

It will be rather unpleasant if mouth hygiene will be terrible and communication may cause certain inconveniences and a kind of disgust for both sides. (Khosla 2006) This is why dentistry and oral hygiene are crucially important to be studied and analyzed. With the help of captivating and effective teaching methods, students and teachers may easily improve their skills, enlarge their knowledge, and provide their future client with better services.

Everything starts with proper education; and I, as a teacher of a module on crown recementation and denture-relining procedures, clearly comprehend this truth and try to present only the best teaching for my students, using modern methods only. In this work, I will present several reliable methods of teaching in the field of dentistry, learning theories, and other concepts to improve medicine and underline the importance of oral hygiene.

In order to present really effective teaching, it is crucially important to clear up the goals, define self-directed and cooperative learning, present proper classroom management, and, of course, understand students. (Borich, 2006) Without any doubts, one of the first steps, which should be taken at first, is professional identity.

The sphere of my teaching is crown recementation and denture relining procedures. There are several types of cement that is possible for crown recementation, and each of them should be studied thoroughly in order not to make a mistake while cementing. (Phinney and Halstead 2003)

Denture relining is also significant, when an already existed denture starts falling down or slipping. Such changes may happen due to several reasons: water retention, different kinds of infections, bone’s resorbing, etc. (Tyson, Yemm, & Scott 2007) This is why in order to get a clear understanding of the reasons why injures happen, it is better to concentrate on the symptoms, problems, and consequences.

Almost the same happens in teaching about dentistry. Such way of research is also offered by Bennett, Peck, and Higgins. They suggest gathering enough information from and about students and identifying their possible problems in order to provide them with proper education. (Benneth, Peck, & Higgins 1996) It is quite possible that not every student can easily introduce his/her own standpoints because of numerous sociological and psychological factors.

“Dental schools, nurses’ training schools, and even trade schools are broadening the social vision and deepening the sense of public responsibility of their students.” (Thomson et al. 2006) This is why one of the most considerable teaching approaches at dental schools is the ability to analyze every student and make everything possible to evoke the desire to participate in discussions and be ready to answer and argue.

To start explaining the material, it is necessary to know what background knowledge every student has. In many universities, students can pass exams and get high grades without “truly understanding the material or how to apply it to problems different from those covered in class.” (Bok 2006) Such analysis of students is possible due to written assignments. It is quite possible to carry out some tests, where grades do not play a significant role.

Those, who do not want to get high grades, try to use their imagination and find the most creative decision. Those, who rely on theory only, will hardly present a creative approach to the decision of the problem. So, with the help of written assignments, which are nor limited with grades, students get a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate their potential, and teachers may find our strong and weak sides of those students and comprehend their logics. (Westwood 2008)

Dentistry is rather a delicate medicine branch. In fact, any sphere that is connected to human health should be studied thoroughly in order not to harm or worsen people’s conditions. It is very important to pay attention to “the role of the patient in late twentieth-century medicine.” (Stanton 2002)

This is why students should be able to combine theory with practice. It is another teaching approach that I find rather appropriate. Multi-disciplinary conferences mean a lot in education, however, without proper practice, the education does not have sense. Students should have abilities to check and develop their skills. “Dental education still focuses on teaching students how to relieve patients from pain, how to replace lost tooth structure, and how to stop further tooth destruction.” (Schmidseder 2000)

Government and medicine should be closely related to provide students with such possibilities and do not forget about “improving standards and promoting the health and safety of the people.” (Harrison 2004) It is possible to train students with the help of illustrative examples and human like exhibits. In such cases, students do not be afraid to cooperate with patients and will be aware about possible humans’ reactions.

One of the learning theories that deserve attention in the sphere of dentistry is theory of condition and timing. Church and Kirkpatrick say that these theories “are designed to account for differential strengths of responding in the presence of different stimulus configurations.” (Church & Kirkpatrick 2001)

The use of such theories helps teachers evaluate what may stimulate students and during what period of time. This analysis may not only improve dental education but also encourage teachers to use their analytical skills and become more sophisticated in the sphere of dentistry and even psychology.

It is also possible to involve librarians into such approach and allow them evaluate students’ levels of activities in libraries and the sources, which are used most of all. (Connor 2005) Then students may be questioned concerning which sources are more reliable and which are more effective in one concrete issue.

I want also to pay certain attention to up-to-date innovations and take into consideration the fact of frequent usage of media sources, such as Internet. The Internet attract students, they prefer to spend more time online then communicate face-to-face. This is why education may be closely connected to the Internet sources.

Computer technologies have advanced with unbelievable speed and, now, create a complex aspect of people’s capabilities. “Computers have made spectacular progress in a short period of time.” (Tanenbaum 2002) Students can easily past tests and check their obtained knowledge online. To my mind, this approach is good indeed to unite students’ passion to the Internet technologies and the sphere of work they choose.

Dental schools, as any other schools in the world, play a very important role in human development. Students get opportunities to study new material, enlarge their knowledge, and practice new skills. Teacher should be ready to use proper approaches and learning theories to captivate students and explain all the material properly.

Students have access to numerous sources, which allow making dental education more interesting, captivating, and effective. (Brien & Buttlar 2000) These methods have been already used, however, their implementation should touch upon every school in order to achieve the desirable success in the sphere of education and medicine.

Reference List

Bennett, C., Peck, LF., and Higgins, C 1996, Researching into Teaching Methods in Colleges and Universities. Routledge.

Bok, DC 2006. Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at how much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More. Princeton University Press.

Borich, GD 2006, Effective Teaching Methods: Research-Based Practice, Prentice Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Brien, NP & Buttlar, L 2000, Education: A Guide to Reference and Information Sources.

Church, RM & Kirkpatrick, K 2001. ‘Theories of Conditioning and Timing’ in Handbook of Contemporary Learning Theories by Mowrer, RR and Klein, SB. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Connor, E 2005. A Guide to Developing End User Education Programs in Medical Libraries. Haworth Press.

Gray, A. and Harrison, S 2004. Governing Medicine: Theory and Practice. McGraw-Hill International.

Khosla, SN 2006. Everyman’S Guide to Perfect Health. Peacock Books.

Phinney, DJ and Halstead, JH 2003, Delmar’s Dental Assisting: A Comprehensive Approach. Cengage Learning.

Schmidseder, J 2000, Aesthetic Dentistry. Thieme.

Stanton, J 2002. Innovation in Health and Medicine: Diffusion and Resistance in the Twentieth Century. Routledge.

Tanenbaum, AS 2002. Computer Networks. Prentice Hall PTR.

Thomson, K., Smith, WR., Snedden, D., Payne, EG., Kinneman, J A., Cook, LA., Gordon, CW., & Cicourel, AV 2006, The Early Sociology of Education: Principles of Educational Sociology. Taylor & Francis.

Tyson, K., Yemm, R., and Scott, B 2007, Understanding Partial Denture Design. Oxford University Press.

Westwood, P 2008. What Teachers Need to Know about Teaching Models. Aust Council for Ed Research.

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Improving Teaching Methods in a Dental School

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