A novel model for curriculum design: Preparation, planning, prototyping, and piloting.

Dental education continuously strives to provide students with positive and meaningful learning experiences. Developing or improving a curriculum usually encompasses three main phases: design, implementation, and evaluation. Most research on curriculum development in dental education has focused on the last two phases. Our commentary addresses this gap by describing a new model for curriculum design that effectively guided the design phase of the complete overhaul of the four-year Doctor of Dental Surgery curriculum at the School of Dentistry, University of Alberta. Built on the strengths of pre-existing curriculum design models, the new model provided enough structure and rigour to support the complexity required during a complete curriculum redesign whilst still allowing sufficient consultation and flexibility to encourage stakeholder engagement. The steps of the new 4P's model (preparation, planning, prototyping, and piloting) and main actions within each step are described. Challenges observed in each step and strategies to address them are reported. Other institutions embarking on renewing or redesigning a curriculum at a program level may benefit from using a curriculum design process similar to the 4P's model. Recommendations are discussed including the inclusion of educational consultants in the curriculum renewal committee, the importance of a leadership that effectively supports curriculum reform, purposeful engagement of stakeholders during each step of the design phase and ensuring that project and change management occur concurrently.

Dental faculty and student views of didactic and clinical assessment: A qualitative description study.

OBJECTIVE: Although assessment is essential to accurately represent student learning, little is currently known about student and faculty perceptions of assessment in dental schools. Our study aimed to explore faculty and student views of didactic and clinical assessments in the School of Dentistry at the University of Alberta. METHOD: Qualitative description informed the study design. Data were collected through focus groups and analysed inductively using manifest content analysis. RESULTS: Five focus groups were conducted with faculty (n = 34) and three with students (n = 19). Faculty and student views of assessment were related to improvements made (perceived positive changes), improvements needed (perceived limitations) and improvements recommended (recommendations to improve perceived limitations). Faculty and students reported that improvements made (eg adequacy of assessment to students' levels of training) varied across instructors, courses and learning environments. Both faculty and students perceived clinical assessments as less appropriate than didactic assessments. Faculty perceived limitations were mostly related to assessment appropriateness, especially assessment accuracy and comprehensiveness, whilst student perceived limitations included other issues related to appropriateness (eg misalignment with course objectives) as well as issues related to assessment volume, pace and scheduling. Similarly, faculty recommendations focused on enhancing the assessment of clinical competencies, whilst students' recommendations aimed to also improve assessment scheduling, volume and usage (eg for learning purposes). CONCLUSIONS: Faculty and student views of assessment complemented one another. Our data show that assessment in dental education is multidimensional, so that multilevel strategies may be needed to improve this component of dental curricula.

Dental Students' Perceptions of Learning Value in PBL Groups with Medical and Dental Students Together versus Dental Students Alone.

At a dental school in Canada, problem-based learning (PBL) sessions were restructured from an integrated dental-medical model to a separate dental model, resulting in three groups of students available for study: those who had participated in the two-year dental and medical combined, the one-year dental and medical combined, the one-year dental alone, and the two-year dental alone. The aim of this qualitative study was to examine the extent to which the PBL structure affected the dental students' perceptions of the learning value of PBL in the different models. A total of 34 first-, second-, and third-year dental students participated in six focus groups in May and June 2011 (34% of students in those total classes). Semistructured questions explored their experiences in the different PBL structures. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim, and thematic analysis was employed. The results showed positive and negative perceptions for both the combined dental and medical settings and the settings with dental students alone. For students in the combined PBL groups, positive perceptions included gaining information from medical peers, motivation to learn, and interdisciplinary collaborations. The negative perceptions mainly related to irrelevant content, dominating medical students, and ineffective preceptors. Members of the separate dental groups were more positive about the content and felt a sense of belonging. They appreciated the dental preceptors but were concerned about the inadequacy of their medical knowledge. Overall, the dental students valued the combined PBL experience and appreciated the opportunity to learn with their medical colleagues. Close attention, however, must be paid to PBL content and the preceptor's role to optimize dental students' experience in combined medical and dental groups.