Poster Board Number: 59
Title: Teaching an Online Informatics Course to Dental Hygiene Students: Challenges and Achievements
Objective: Describe the model developed for teaching informatics in a comprehensive online environment to undergraduate students of the Forsythe School of Dental Hygiene, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Discuss the developmental and implementation issues encountered and the resulting solutions. Identify challenges and rewards of educating students in a virtual classroom by emphasizing interprofessional faculty collaboration as an effective strategy in enhancing student learning. The challenge was to use an interdisciplinary team to develop a fully online educational experience based on the Blackboard course management technology.
Methods: In order to create a comprehensive online learning environment, several modifications were made to the Blackboard interface. These included:
• designing a virtual classroom as an activity center for providing course documents, presentations, and other learning resources or exercises
• administering assignments and tests online
• scheduling regular live webinars to provide online face-to-face support to the students
• engaging students in ongoing mandatory Discussion Board activities
• using the Digital Drop Box to transfer information securely.
In addition, a methodology was developed for collaboration among faculty. Students were evaluated based on a five-part term project, discussion board participation, and two quizzes.
Results: The success of this approach was measured based on the students’ grades in various assignments as well as the teaching faculty’s ability to meet the challenges of online learning. Lessons learned might be valuable for other educators who are teaching or planning to teach students in a comprehensive online environment.
Conclusions: The creative use of a basic learning platform like Blackboard provides the capacity to develop a comprehensive online learning environment for students. This approach can be applied at various institutions to expand the educational role of librarians, especially in academic libraries and in those with small staff complements (such as hospital libraries). Blackboard and other technical tools used through this course can expand an educator’s teaching effectiveness, optimize students’ learning experience, and promote collaboration between the faculties from varied disciplines.
Authors: Samuel B. King, Assistant Professor and Librarian, Manchester Campus, Library and Learning Resources, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Manchester, NH; Mariana Lapidus, Associate Professor and Librarian, Library and Learning Resources; Aditi Puri, Assistant Professor, Forsyth School of Dental Hygiene; Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Boston, MA
