| The University of Adelaide | Home | Faculties & Divisions | Search |
|
|
|
|
Further Enquiries: Telephone: +61 8 8303 5256
|
IntroductionThe School of Dentistry at the University of Adelaide has always had a well-deserved reputation for its high quality and innovative educational programmes. To maintain its standing it needs to ensure that the curricula, for both the BDS and BOH courses, remain at the forefront of international best practice. In addition, it needs to make certain that its graduates are fit for purpose in a health service that has changed significantly since the last major curriculum review. With these facts in mind the School has decided to conduct a review in advance of its accreditation visit by the Australian Dental Council due in 2008. The School has appointed a Curriculum Review Task Force (chair Professor Wayne Sampson) to facilitate this process.The School has been fortunate in obtaining the services of Professor David Newble as an educational consultant who will lead the review process. David is a specialist physician by training who for many years worked in the University’s Department of Medicine. He has an international reputation in the field of Medical Education. In recent years he worked as Professor of Medical Education at the University of Sheffield where he established a substantial Department of Medical Education and was responsible for a major curriculum review in that institution. As a result of this work he was invited to help undertake major curriculum review activities for other institutions in Australia, the UK, Scandinavia, Ireland, Singapore and Malaysia. Professor Newble is a strong advocate of an outcomes-based approach to curriculum development. By this he means that the process should start by defining what it is the graduating student should know or be able to do in order to practice competently as a general dentist. The curriculum should then be designed to help the student achieve these outcomes. International trends in dental education strongly favour approaches that are more student focussed; show a high degree of integration between the dental sciences and clinical practice; provide more opportunities for early exposure to clinical practice and more attachments to community and private practices; place more emphasis on interdisciplinary team work; and utilise more fully information technologies. Professor Newble believes that an essential part of the curriculum development process, particularly when it has a strong outcome focus, is the early involvement of all staff and stakeholders – which therefore includes students, the profession, the health services and the general community. The first task is to clarify a unifying vision for the curriculum which incorporates the views of all these groups (if we don’t know where we are going it is unlikely we will arrive there!). Issues have been explored at meetings with academic staff, with the Australian Dental Association, and with the South Australian Dental Service. Students have also been enthusiastic early participants in this exercise. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
© 2008 The University of Adelaide Last Modified 28/08/2008 School of Dentistry CRICOS Provider Number 00123M |
