Title: Use of the Blackboard online learning environment for collaborative, selfdirected projects David Dym
1Use of the Blackboard online learning environment
for collaborative, self-directed projectsDavid
DymockSenior Lecturer in Oral MicrobiologyChairm
an, Dental Education Committee
2Plan of talk
- The old BDS curriculum
- Special study elements
- Library projects
- Online projects
- The new BDS curriculum
- Research concepts, methodologies and project
3Structure of the old Bristol BDS programme
Year 1 2 3
4 5
Weeks 30 30
42 42 42
- Introductory fortnight ? Oral anatomy,
-
biochemistry, physiology
Topic teaching
- ? Human disease ? Oral
disease - ? Basic Medical ? Pathology
(O
med,path,micro,rad) - Sciences Microbiology
(OMFS) -
- ? Anatomy ? Pharmacology
- ? Biochemistry
- ? Physiology ? Biomaterials
Science -
- ? Basic Dental Techniques
Advanced - Elective
- ? Dentist in society
- ? Law ethics ? Dental pub
health, health/society - ? BLS ILS
- ? Introduction to Clinical dentistry
A E
? Didactic teaching teaching divisions
Elective
outreach
Clinical Practice in teaching divisions CDH,
Restorative, OMFS Oral Med,Path Micro
? Special Study Elements
Individual clinical teaching logbooks
2nd BDS
3rd BDS
Final BDS I
Final BDS II
Continuous assessment
4Special Study Element choices
- Modern Language
- Spanish
- French
- Italian
- German
- British Sign Language
- Project
- Laboratory
- Library
- Blackboard online projects
5Library projects
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8Communication
WWW links
Presentations
Using Blackboard
Storing information, pro-formas, etc
Online assessment Feedback
Reading
Timetables
9Constructing online projects
- Utilise Blackboard facilities to run the
project - Self-explanatory structure within bespoke project
sites - E-mail
- WWW links
- Discussion board
- Digital dropbox
- Feedback
- Require 3-6 students
- Encourage both independent study and teamwork
- Each individual benefits from efforts of others
in the project group - Offer different topics
- Dental plaque (DD)
- Oral cancer (Angela Hague)
10Microbiology and dentistry
11Dental plaque can lead to disease
Gingivitis
Health
Caries
Periodontitis
12Learning about dental plaque in the BDS programme
- Year 1
- General Biochemistry
- Year 2
- Oral Biology
- Years 3-5
- Clinically-orientated teaching units
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14Marketing the project
- Presented at Year 2 introductory lectures
- Registered all students before SSE choices made
- Provided detailed information within site
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22Project tasks
- Each student to read and review a paper relating
to dental plaque on a fortnightly basis - Submit reviews to discussion board and digital
dropbox - Read and comment on reviews by others
- Repeat tasks 1, 2 3 six times
- Provide a PowerPoint presentation to the group
- Assistance provided through the site
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41The Discussion Board
- Review submission
- Communication
- Asking and answering questions
- Making comments
- Providing links to relevant documents/internet
links - Filing cabinet
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53Completing the project
- 2004-05
- 3 students
- 18 papers reviewed
- 3 oral presentations
- 3 reports
- 2 merits, 1 pass
- Feedback obtained
- 2005-06
- 4/5 students completed
- 27 papers reviewed
- 4 oral presentations provided
- 1 distinction, 3 merits
- Feedback obtained
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55What did you feel were the benefits of choosing
the Dental Plaque Project?
- Student 1
- I flet more responsable for the ammount of work I
did. Rather than being forced to hand work in
(lots of 2nd 3rdBDS felt like being at school
again), you worked because you had an interest in
the subject and were pretty much left to get on
with it. - Constant use of athens and pubmed trained us how
to get the best out of these resources, therefore
aiding other projects I have done since.
- Student 2
- Not only was the project interesting with the
oppurtunity to explore areas of personal interest
in the particular area, it also benefited us all
in the oral biochemistry element of 3rdBDS. The
discussion board was used well and was noted by
all as being a very valuble tool for the future.
Also it was of enormous beefit to gain experience
using online journals. This made the oral
physiology library project research finding
really straight forward.
56What did you feel were the benefits of choosing
the Dental Plaque Project?
- Student 3
- The freedom to choose the subjects to read up on
made this unit unique to the rest of the course,
it allowed me to read up on subjects that I was
interested in. The main benifit to me was at the
end of it I could read and summerise papers,and
this has already helped with other subjects. - Student 4
- really useful to learn how to search on the
multiple databases, very useful for the phys lib
project later in the 2nd year.
- Student 4 (ctd)
- also learned how ot be critical about information
of papers...in essence thinking a little about
whay was written,. not just accepting it as
gospel. - o and i widened my base of awareness of dental
plaque..will be useful in coming years im sure - i was able to get on with research and writing on
my own, i didnt need to go to a class room at
such and such a time. i like this independence.
the deadlines were there so i worked to them at
my own pace.
57What did you feel were the possible disadvantages
of choosing this project?
- The other subjects for SSE allowed the students
to get away from dentistry which could be seen as
a refreshing break. - One could not have the oppurtunity to explore a
new subject such as sign language. I haven't had
the oppurtunity to do this before and it would
have been interesting. - i didnt think there were any
58Feedback improving transferable skills
59Feedback workload, BDS linkage
60Did you feel that the assessment of the project
and marking scheme used reflected the work put
into the various components?
- Pretty spot on in my opinion
- I would have prefered a little more weight
towards the presentation (including the acual
delivery). Other than that distrubution of marks
seemed fine - I found it difficult to find something
intelligent to say about each of the other
peoples papers and I dont think it reflected the
time spent reading them but it was worth while. - the comments on the disscusion board were to
highly weighted and the presentation too lightly
weighted.
61Did the Blackboard site give you the information
you required to successfully complete your work
for the project? If not, please provide
suggestions for change.
- yes it did
- The only problems that I encounted through the
project were - My own time management (my fault)
- Nasty journals wanting 30 for a paper.
- I dont think that these could be solved so no.
- yes it did
- it was fine, and the links were very useful
62What did you think of the help and instruction
given by the lecturer? Were there specific areas
where more assistance or advice would have been
beneficial? How useful were the group meetings?
- meeting were useful as they were only really to
see how we were gettinh along and to jolt us into
doing a bit more work here and there. help and
advice given was helpful. - Group meeting were of good use. Made sure we were
all singing off the same hymn sheet and they
addressed any problems we had. - The few group meetings we had were helpful but
were short so walking in for them and nothing
else on occasions were inconvenient. - Dr Dymock watched over the project offered advice
and suggestions when needed. But pretty much left
us to get on with it. I think we all
appreciated this approach. If there are other
ways of getting papers for free that would have
been useful.
63If you have any other comments on the Dental
Plaque project or possible future use of
Blackboard for similar literature-based and
discussion board-reported projects on a wider
range of dentistry-related topics please provide
them below.
- I think this project was really useful to
dentists (a lot more than being able ask for
shoes in german) and was the best choice for the
open unit. I gained a lot from it and think is a
very good idea. Thank you for the help - nothing to say except ot should be done
again....i cant see why is wouldnt be useful to
have a small thing like this running through the
whole 5 years. this would get students into the
habbit of finding out about changes in dentistry
and increase their knowledge of dentistry
holisticaly. i would like something like that.
64Pros and cons of Bbd online projects
- Pros
- 21st century approach
- Monitoring progress
- Transferable skills
- Independent study
- Individuals benefit from group effort
- Feedback is positive
- Plagiarism detection
- Cons
- Set-up
- Marketing essential
- Not every article available electronically
- Sufficient numbers required
65Reviewing the curriculum
- Reviewed 2005
- Pressure on year 2
- Students want earlier patient contact
- Electives
- Safety considerations?
- Educational value?
- GDC First Five Years
- Validated spring 2006
- Implemented autumn 2006
66Popularity of SSE options since 2001-02
67Teaching hours Year 2 BDS 2004-05
ML - 48 hours BSL - 60 hours
68The First Five Years
- THE CONTINUITY OF DENTAL EDUCATION
- 12. The primary dental degree or diploma
represents only the first stage in an educational
continuum which should last throughout a
dentists practising life. Graduation is usually
followed at an early stage by a period of
vocational training which under current proposals
may evolve into a two-year period of general
professional training. Some dentists may then
choose to undertake a period of specialist
training. Beyond these formal educational
arrangements, the dentist will be required to
undertake a minimum amount of continuing
professional development as a condition of
maintaining registration with the GDC. The
curriculum must prepare students to undertake
self-directed learning throughout their
professional lives.
69The First Five Years
- THE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
- 31. The university will also provide library
facilities and information technology resources.
These should be sufficient to enable all dental
students to undertake guided self-learning.
Formal instruction should be given in the use of
personal learning techniques, such as
computer-assisted learning, with emphasis on the
developing area of health informatics.
70The First Five Years
- ELECTIVE STUDIES
- 108. It is desirable, though not essential, for
dental students to visit other dental schools or
dental clinical centres, either in the United
Kingdom or abroad, during the period of clinical
study. The main objective should be to broaden
the undergraduates education by exploring the
dental problems and dental management systems in
another context. As far as possible, curricula
should be designed to facilitate opportunities
for elective studies. Elective visits might be
arranged around a project consisting of either
audit or research, and the results should be
presented on return by students in written form
or verbally before an audience.
71Bristol BDS programme structure from 2006
Year 1 2
3 4 5
Weeks 30 38
42 42
42
? Introductory fortnight
? Oral Biology
?Human disease
-
- ? Basic Medical ? Pathology
- Sciences Microbiology
-
- ? Anatomy ? Pharmacology
- ? Biochemistry ? Social
dentistry - ? Physiology ? Biomaterials
Science - ? BLS ILS
? Basic
Dental Techniques Advanced -
- ? Clinical Foundation
- Elements
- Dental assisting
- Disability special needs
- Clinician-patient interface
- Anxiety and pain control
- and conscious sedation
- Periodontology
- Radiation protection
- Research concepts,
?Oral disease
A E
Symposia Basic clinical sciences
? Didactic teaching teaching divisions -
integrated
Clinical Practice Outreach Integrated adult and
child dental care
Record of achievement reflective portfolio
personal and professional development
Continuous Assessment Yr1 Yr
Yr3 Yr4
Final BDS
72Research concepts, methodologies and project
(Year 2)
- Lecture course
- History and Philosophy of Science
- Evidence-Based Medicine/Dentistry
- Epidemiology
- Questionnaire Design
- Data analysis and Presentation
- Qualitative Research
- Writing a Protocol
- Ethics
- Statistics
- Clinical trials in dentistry
- Dissemination of data
- Dental research symposium
73Research concepts, methodologies and project
(Years 3 4)
- Project preparation through Blackboard-based site
- Compulsory for all students
- Literature searching, reviewing, reporting,
discussing - Termly rotations of topics
- Choice of topics based on academic interests of
staff - Discussion board-based group work
- Team-working towards projects
- Database of approved centres for projects
(UK/abroad) - Project
- Group decisions on topics
- Individuals contribute to totality
- Peer marking
74Acknowledgements
- Angela Hague
- Learning Technology Support Service
- Julian Cook, Andy Ramsden
- Centre for Medical Education
- Jane Williams, Dominic Alder
- Lis Jones