Journal of dental education
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Social media, also known as Web 2.0, includes a set of web-based technologies in which users actively share and create content through open collaboration. The current students in dental school are Millennial learners who are comfortable using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, for both socialization and learning. This article defines and explores the range of Web 2.0 technologies available for use in dental education, addresses their underlying pedagogy, and discusses potential problems and barriers to their implementation.
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This article describes the evolution of thinking, primarily over the past fifteen years, within the academic dentistry community concerning teaching and learning strategies to facilitate students' acquisition of competence. Readers are encouraged to consider four issues. First, looking back to the time of the Institute of Medicine report Dental Education at the Crossroads: Challenges and Change fifteen years ago, in the mid-1990s, where did we think we would be now, in 2011, in regard to the structure of the predoctoral curriculum and use of specific educational methodologies, and to what extent have those predictions come true? The author's own crystal ball predictions from the 1990s are used to kick off a discussion of what connected and what did not among numerous advocated educational reforms, many of them transformative in nature. ⋯ Third, readers are asked to revisit four not-so-new teaching/learning methods that are still worthy of consideration in dental education in light of best evidence, upcoming events, and technology that has finally matched its potential. Fourth, a specific rate-limiting factor that hinders the best efforts of both teachers and students in virtually all U. S. dental schools is discussed, concluding with a plea to find a better way so that the good works of dental educators and their students can be more evident.
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The approach to care in dentistry has evolved over the past couple of decades from a narrow focus on oral disease to addressing the psychosocial determinants of oral health. Subsequently, there have been many attempts to reform dental curricula through alternative models of education, such as competency-based and community-based educational models and problem-based learning. ⋯ However, it is not yet clear how well these educational initiatives meet their objectives or how they influence the reasoning skills of dental students. There is now a need to develop a conceptual framework for clinical reasoning in dentistry grounded on empirical evidence to direct the future evolution of dental education.
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Community-based service-learning is increasingly common in dental education. By definition, service-learning combines educational goals with service to the community, and the community and school are equal partners. The three main goals of service-learning are improving learning, promoting civic engagement, and strengthening communities. ⋯ Community-based service-learning programs can also address societal needs by improving the public's access to oral health care through partnerships among dental schools, oral health providers, and communities. This article describes service-learning programs at several dental schools to illustrate application of this educational strategy in predoctoral dental education. This article also describes challenges that confront schools desiring to implement and sustain service-learning programs, including academic quality, faculty development and training, interprofessionalism, making time in the curriculum, budget, faculty shortages and time, student credit, quality control, and remote sites away from the dental school.