Our final blog post! What a semester we have had. We’ve discussed the various roles of clinical instructors, bloom’s taxonomy relating to clinical instruction, theoretical approaches to the psychomotor domain, clinical teaching behaviors and strategies, promoting critical thinking, evaluation, remediation, clinic issues…phew! I hope this course has providing you with a starting point to engage and understand student learning in the clinical environment. Our final topic is ethics. This is not a word that is new to you, but you may have considered it more from a dental hygiene provider viewpoint rather than an instructor.

For Blog Post #7, I’d like you to discuss what ethics means to you and how it differs from law. After reading the book chapter and especially chapter 10 in HCT (PDF), what ethical situations do see yourself facing in the future as a clinical instructor? How will you protect yourself as a faculty member?

Chapter 16 in our book describes some various situations that could be encountered in the clinical setting. These ranged from students with learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and even generational/cultural differences. For your blog post, I want you to talk about what issue in this chapter surprised you the most. Was there any situation discussed that you hadn’t even considered as something you could run into? Furthermore, after reading the chapter, what kinds of student issues do you expect to deal with in the clinical setting and how do you feel you can handle those situations?

Looking forward to reading your thoughts…and thanks for your patience on this post!

-Amy

After our webmeeting and course materials this week on promoting critical thinking, please answer the following prompt for Blog Post #4.

It could be argued that it is much easier to give a student the information they need rather than have them think for themselves and get to the answer on their own. Why is critical thinking so important in our clinical instruction and education? What do you feel is the best way to promote critical thinking in dental hygiene education and why? How do you see yourself utilizing this technique? What do you foresee as challenges to promoting critical thinking and how could you overcome those challenges?

This week we are discussing effective teaching strategies. This is one of my favorite modules of the class because it is so relevant to what you all will soon be encountering. This is where it gets exciting! When reviewing the effective clinical teaching strategies this week, recall the learning domains discussed in our webmeeting. Remember what skills are included in those domains, and that the clinical learning environment will touch on all three of those domains.

After reading the course materials for this week, in blog post #3, I’d like you to discuss what effective clinical teaching means to you. To what extent would you agree/disagree that clinical teaching is just supervision? Think about the responsibilities/roles of the clinical instructor we discussed the last few weeks. What clinical teaching strategies can be employed to foster the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains of learning in the clinical setting? Be sure to site specific examples of how you can use these strategies in the clinical setting, both from the course materials and your own experiences as a student or instructor. After reading the articles on student perceptions, would you agree with the articles?

Thank you for bringing your own personal perspectives to the blogs so far. It is refreshing to hear your stories. I have high expectations and anticipation for your posts!

This week we are going to dive into the role of a clinical instructor. As we go through the course, I want you to start visualizing yourself in this role. When I was searching for course content for this module, I came across a common theme in the articles I was reading; most clinical instructors have not had any formal education about educational methodology and effective teaching strategies. Although that doesn’t shock me, I never really had thought of that before. That being said, I am determined for you all to leave this class with confidence and knowledge of teaching in the clinical/laboratory setting!

For this week’s blog post #1, discuss the various roles of the clinical instructor. The two article I posted as well as the readings have some differing ideas of the roles of clinical instructors, as most of the information out is related to the nursing profession. What do you feel the role(s) of a clinical dental hygiene instructors are? How will you fill those roles?

I also want you to get thinking about what the goals of dental hygiene clinical education are. Although there is obviously a broad, overarching goal (pass the clinical exam), what are the other goals of clinical education? How will the roles a clinical instructor plays influence the meeting of these educational goals?

Finally, imagine yourself in this role. What do you perceive your strengths will be (or are now)? What about weaknesses?

Please read the blog rubric before completing your posts! Can’t wait to hear what you all have to say!!

-Amy

Hello everyone! I am so excited I was asked to teach this course for you all this semester. I know you all are familiar with blogging so this should be nothing new to you by now. This course we will be utilizing blogs to reflect on the information learned as well as interact with your classmates and I throughout the course. I enjoy blogs because they allow me to see your personalities through creative writing styles and media, as well as show your depth of thought on the course material and your ability to develop your own opinions and ideas.

On a week a blog post is assigned, prompts will be posted on this page on Monday mornings and are due on Sundays at 11:59 PM. Please read over the rubric prior to submitting your first blog. Comments will be due the same week, so I encourage you to post early so that others have time to read and comment on your post (i.e. don’t wait until Sunday at 11PM). I believe this is a change from previous courses so I will do my best to remind you during the week.

This is my “office”

😉