Using suitable materials, instruments and tools; putting into effect disinfection and sterilization maneuvres at the dentist´s office; taking proper mechanical control of dental plaque with toothbrush and dental floss by means of effective techniques to self and others are some of the objectives of this project, coordinated by Professor Pilar Baca García. Stomatology Professors María Paloma González Rodríguez, Juan Carlos Llodra Calvo, Manuel Bravo Pérez, Pilar Junco Lafuente and Alberto Rodríguez Archilla are in the team, as well as scholar Adela Baca García and Inmaculada Morillas Puente and María Gertrudis Gómez Villaescusa, Management and Services staff of the University of Granada.
This CD also teachs students how to remove tartar in patients; how to treat a patient with fluoride gel in trays and fluoride varnish; clorhexidine gel in trays and clorhexidine varnish; fissure sealers in molars and premolars in schoolchildren; how to identify and solve special situations from a clinical point of view with fissure sealers, how to treat molars and premolars.
According to the person in charge of the project, approved by the Vice-Chancellorship of Planning, Quality and Teaching Evaluation, “this experience has been useful to agree on our criteria and has envolved an effort to summarize and systematize every preventive technique to design a material so as students can work individually and get involved in self learning. It is a way of giving time to teaching, preparing didactic material using the possibilities of new technologies. It involves there are going to be changes when the European Space for Higher Education becomes a reality. Likewise, we think it will be useful for students, but they must carry out their hospital training to realize how useful they are, and that will not be posible until the end of term.
Applying preventive oral techniques in patients is part of the degree in Dentistry. They are included in the core subject “Preventive and Community Dentistry”. However, these techniques must be applied in every clinical subject of the degree. To reach such learning level, students must be trained following a pattern to acquire knowledge and practical skills. We start from theoretical content base that students acquire from master classes and the practice workbook. The next step has traditionally been to train students to get an appropiate psychomotor activity. It is greatly useful for the students to have a CD-ROM including all the necessary steps to apply the more usual preventive techniques in patients as part of their teaching material; this CD makes the chance of visualizing such techniques available, allowing an improvement in the quality of the teaching-learning process. Previous visualization makes clinical and preclinical practice easier.
The person in charge of the project is certain of that “innovation teaching techniques promotion and new technologies application in university education must be aimed not only be aimed at teaching staff, but also at students. A lot of them do not incorporate new technologies in their learning activities nor the materials and facilities the University offers them by means of departments and centres. Thay are used to receive an education in which students play a passive role focused on writing notes from master classes and studying for the exam”.
Reference: Prof Pilar Baca García.
Department of Stomatology.
University of Granada.
Phone number: 958 243801.
E-mail: pbaca@platon.ugr.es
Prof María Paloma González Rodríguez.
Phone number: 958 243803.
E-mail: mpaloma@ugr.es
