scholarly journals Introducing career skills for dental students as an undergraduate course at the University of Szeged, Hungary

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Réka Magdolna Szabó ◽  
Joan Mary Davis ◽  
Márk Antal

Abstract Background In the last three decades there is a growing recognition in the dental profession that dental education must go beyond teaching the technicalities of dentistry and include professionalism and communication skills that the future dentist may need. Such skills are best taught in a student-centered way. Literature suggests that student-centered elements are difficult to introduce in traditional, teacher-centered curricula. This is especially true in post-communist countries where higher education was under strict state control for decades. The aim of the piece of research presented here was to investigate how difficult it is to introduce a student-centered career skills course in a traditionally teacher-centered dental curriculum. Methods Considering the needs of our final-year dental students and Super’s model of career development, we created an undergraduate curricular career skills course running for two semesters in two languages (Hungarian and English). The primary aim of the course is to help students with their career expectations and develop their identity as a professional workforce. The secondary aim is to teach skills that students can use when applying for a job. At the end of the semesters, we assessed our students’ satisfaction with various aspects of the course by using a questionnaire. Results were analyzed item-wise and according to the main aspects of the course (i.e., groups of items organized around a particular aspect). Results General satisfaction with the course was high, and practical skills training (such as CV and motivation letter writing) got the highest scores. From the answers it appears that the students were the least comfortable with having to deal with their personal values and preferences. Conclusions While it is common for universities to offer various forms of career intervention, to our knowledge, no other university offers a curricular career skills course specifically for dental students. Our student-centered course designed in a problem-based learning framework worked even in a traditionally teacher-centered educational environment, where university students are rarely encouraged to be active participants in courses. By sharing our experience, we would like to encourage our fellow dental educators working in similar environments to devise and offer such courses.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-52
Author(s):  
Jonathan Quartey ◽  
◽  
Carina Eksteen ◽  
Glynis Pickworth ◽  
Ajediran Bello ◽  
...  

Training physiotherapists to a level where they can influence the standard of health care practice could be a complex process. Entry-level physiotherapy education in Ghana is a continuum between academic and clinical training during which they have to integrate the application and development of skills in communication, collaboration, advocatory and leadership. Self-directed learning is considered by many as one of the appropriate methodologies to allow practitioners to stay up-to-date and knowledgeable of the current literature. A teacher-centered approach is characterized by lecturing and hands-on skills training as the main or only way of facilitating student learning. Students who qualify as physiotherapists from teacher-centered tertiary institutions need to be self-directed life-long learners to be able to meet the demands of a complex work environment in the field of physiotherapy and professional health care delivery. The teacher-centered traditional approach to teaching and learning appears to be the predominant form of teaching among most universities in Ghana. Since a student-centered teaching approach has been widely recommended as the approach of choice, especially in the education of health care professionals, there is a need to determine if it is possible to design and implement physiotherapy based modules that include student-centered approaches such as Self-directed learning which may address minimal guidance that is usually associated with teacher centered tertiary training in Ghana. Keywords: Self-directed learning; teacher-centred; Physiotherapy, student-centredAbstract


Author(s):  
Helena Carvalho ◽  
Francis C. Dane ◽  
Shari A. Whicker

Abstract Introduction Conceptions of learning and teaching refer to what faculty think about teaching effectiveness. Approaches to teaching refer to the methods they use to teach. Both conceptions and approaches range from student-centered/learning-focused (active learner engagement) to teaching-centered/content-focused (passive learner engagement). This study explored how faculty teaching experience influenced faculty conceptions and their approaches to teaching. The authors hypothesized that more experienced educators appreciate and apply active learning approaches. Methods The authors used a cross-sectional survey to collect anonymous data from the Basic Science faculty at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (VTCSOM). The survey included the Conceptions of Learning and Teaching scale (COLT; Jacobs et al. 2012) and demographic information. They assessed instrument reliability with Cronbach’s alpha and examined relationships between variables with correlation and chi-square and group differences with ANOVA. Results Thirty-eight percent (50/130) of faculty responded to the survey. COLT scores for student-centered (4.06 ± 0.41) were significantly higher (p < 0.001) than teacher-centered (3.12 ± 0.6). Teacher-centered scores were lower (p < 0.05) for younger (30–39, 2.65 ± 0.48) than older faculty (50–59, 3.57 ± 0.71) and were negatively correlated with using multiple teaching methods (p = 0.022). However, 83% (39/50) reported using both traditional lectures and active approaches. Discussion Faculty conceptions about teaching showed appreciation for active learning, but a tendency to use traditional teaching methods interspersed with student-centered ones. Teaching experience was not related to faculty conceptions but was related to their teaching approaches. The amount of time dedicated to teaching was related to the appreciation of active learning, and young teachers were more student-oriented.


1994 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 439-455
Author(s):  
Barbara B. Blechner ◽  
Christie L. Hager ◽  
Nancy R. Williams

Health law and medical ethics are both integral parts of undergraduate medical curricula. The literature has addressed the importance of teaching law and ethics separately in medical school settings, yet there have been few descriptions of teaching law and ethics together in the same curriculum. A combined program in law and ethics required for first-year medical and dental students was developed and implemented by Professor Joseph (Jay) M. Healey, Jr., at the University of Connecticut Schools of Medicine and Dental Medicine from 1975 until his death in 1993. This Article describes the thirty-hour, interactive, case-based course he created. The course, Legal and Ethical Aspects of Medicine and Dental Medicine (LEA), has continued after Jay 's death, and is one of his many legacies to us. LEA consists of fifty-six actual and hypothetical cases written by Jay from which basic legal and ethical principles are extracted by participants and reinforced by instructors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-31
Author(s):  
Rose Sliger Krause ◽  
Andrea Langhurst Eickholt ◽  
Justin L. Otto

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the music performance collection preserved in Eastern Washington University’s institutional repository (IR). This collection of recordings of student music performances is the result of an ongoing collaboration between the university?s library and music department, which serves to provide discoverability, preservation and access to a collection of student creative works, which had heretofore been a hidden collection. Design/methodology/approach This collection of student creative work was identified as a suitable project for the Eastern Washington University’s IR while it was still in the planning stages because it was identified as an existing need that the new IR could address. Much of the groundwork for the collaboration between the library and music department was completed prior to IR implementation. Thus, the library was ready to begin work on this collection once the IR was operational. Findings The student music performance collection has been a successful project for the IR, which benefits the music department by making student performances discoverable and accessible, and benefits the library by providing the opportunity to demonstrate that the then-new IR could support the university’s student-centered focus on teaching and learning. Originality/value While there is a growing body of literature on IRs emphasizing student work, there is little literature on music or other creative works’ collections in IRs, much less on creative works by students. This paper adds to the limited body of literature on student creative works in the IR by describing the development, implementation and lessons learned from the successful music performances collection.


Author(s):  
Vignesh Kamath ◽  
Swapna B V ◽  
Smitha Sammith Shetty ◽  
Priya Mukherjee ◽  
Anoop Mayya ◽  
...  

Aim: To assess the knowledge and attitude of students of dental schools in Southern India towards Basic Life Support (BLS), as well as to study the retention of BLS knowledge over time. Subjects and methods: A prevalidated questionnaire was employed, which contains 12 knowledge Questions and five questions designed to assess the students perspective towards BLS. It was hosted on Google Forms, and the URL was distributed to the Students. Results: A total of 267 responses were received, of which 66 were males and 201 were female students. Out of a maximum possible score of 12, the mean knowledge score of the group was 4.54. It was found that those who attended a BLS workshop within the last 2 years scored significantly better than those who either took it more than 2 years ago or had never undergone BLS training. Almost all participants (96%) agreed that there is a need for BLS to be learned by all dental students and hence BLS training should be part of the dental curriculum. 76.8% of respondents expressed reluctance to perform CPR on strangers. Conclusion: The findings show that the dental students who participated in the study had inadequate knowledge in BLS, but had a positive attitude towards the adoption of BLS into the dental curriculum.


2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tufi Neder Meyer ◽  
Leonardo Lima Lemos ◽  
Carolina Neder Matuck do Nascimento ◽  
William Ricardo Ribeiro de Lellis

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of nasopalatine nerve block for anesthesia of maxillary central incisors after failure of the anterior superior alveolar nerve (ASAN) block technique. Secondarily, the possible innervation of the maxillary central incisors by the nasopalatine nerve was also investigated. Twenty-seven healthy, young adult volunteers (age: 17-26 years; gender: 9 males and 18 females) were enrolled in this study. All participants were undergraduate dental students of the University of Vale do Rio Verde de Três Corações. The volunteers had the anterior superior alveolar nerves anesthetized and a thermal sensitivity test (cold) was performed on the maxillary central incisors. The volunteers that responded positively to cold stimulus received a nasopalatine nerve block and the thermal sensitivity test was repeated. All participants were anesthetized by a single operator. Three patients presented sensitivity after both types of bilateral blocks and were excluded from the percentage calculations. In the remaining 24 patients, 16 had their maxillary central incisors anesthetized by the anterior superior alveolar block and 8 remained with sensitivity after the ASAN block. All these 8 patients had their maxillary central incisors successfully anesthetized by the nasopalatine block. In this study, 33.3% of the subjects had the innervation of one or both maxillary central incisors derived from the nasopalatine nerve, whilst most subjects (66.7%) had such teeth innervated by the anterior superior alveolar nerve. The nasopalatine nerve block was effective in anesthetizing the maxillary central incisors when the anterior superior alveolar nerve block failed.


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