Institute for Teaching and Learning > ITL Program Objectives by Topic

At the conclusion of the program, ITL Scholars will have developed skills in each of the following areas. They will be able to:

Academic Career Planning

• Describe factors that influence promotion and tenure review in academic health science centers.
• Explore issues related to transitioning into an academic career from private practice.
• Discuss factors that influence the quality of faculty work-life.
• Discuss issues, controversies, and future directions in dental education.

Case-Based Learning

• Assess the advantages and disadvantages of small group, case-based learning.
• Identify skills of the effective small group facilitator.
• Describe formats that can be used for dental cases.
• Write a case and conduct a try-out with colleagues.

Clinical Teaching Best Practices

• Identify techniques that are associated with high quality clinical teaching.
• Describe best practices for giving feedback.
• Describe strategies for using questions to guide students’ learning.
• Critique “teachers in action” to identify exemplary instructional methods and areas that need modification.
• Assess own teaching methods and areas where improvement may be needed.

Classroom Teaching Best Practices

• Identify factors and techniques that are associated with high quality classroom lectures.
• Critique a lecture and identify teacher behavior and methods that promoted learning and factors that hindered learning.
• Describe techniques that can be employed by instructors to gain and hold student attention during lectures.

Course Planning and Instructional Design

• Describe and use a course planning model based on instructional design principles.
• Identify the characteristics of well-written learning objectives.
• Write learning objectives and receive feedback on these objectives from colleagues.
• Identify the characteristics of competency-based dental education and discuss how it differs from conventional approaches to curriculum planning.

Critical Thinking

• Identify techniques that can be used to help students develop their critical thinking skills.
• Review evidence for educational best practices related to problem-solving and self-directed learning.
• Describe methods for evaluating students’ critical thinking capacities.

Evaluation of Learners’ Performance

• Describe factors that may produce inaccurate evaluations of student performance.
• Discuss best practices for evaluating learners’ competence in the lab or clinic.
• Describe strategies for writing high-quality multiple choice tests including case-based test items.
• Critique an examination including identifying poorly constructed test items and writing improved versions of these questions.

Learning Environment

• Discuss factors that distinguish effective from dysfunctional learning environments.
• Review students’ perceptions of what constitutes high-quality and low-quality instruction.
• Describe students’ emotional development and sense of self-image as they move through the curriculum.

Personality and Learning Styles

• Describe types of learning styles and their implications for instruction in dental school.
• Assess own preferred style of learning and discuss how it influences teaching philosophy.
• Complete a personal inventory and assess influence of personality on decision-making, teamwork, and communication.

Principles of Learning

• Analyze why and how they learn best and identify conditions that hinder their learning.
• Assess their own learning style preferences and discuss how these preferences may influence how they teach and interact with students.
• Compare and contrast how novices and experts organize information and solve problems; discuss the implications of these differences for teaching.
• Discuss the evolution of learner self-awareness during the novice to expert development continuum and analyze causes of learner defensiveness.

Working Productively with Difficult Students

• Use a four-step process for analyzing and responding to students who are struggling academically or are difficult to work with.
• Analyze cases depicting students who are struggling and identify help strategies.

Research and Publication