Assignment 1a

A little late addition but there we go!

I use various teaching methods are employed for undergraduate teaching, including supervision of lab-based projects, formal lectures, interactive seminars and workshops and computer-assisted learning (CAL).  The students have mainly been from the Department of Dental Medicine within the Dental Program but across different stages of their education; e.g. Term 1 students receive formal lectures within the Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB) program, Term 4 students have lectures, seminars and CAL sessions (Virtual Histology) within Oral Pathology and Histology (OHP), some Term 5 students do laboratory-based studies; and Term 6 students have seminars and workshops to aid their preparation for exam projects. The number of hours per semester varies but it can be from 5 to 15hrs. The sizes of the classes vary considerably; CMB and OPH programs can be up to 95 students (divided in two for CAL sessions) to small groups for the lab-based courses and the seminars (5-20 students).

Again a variety of different teaching methods are used to educate postgraduate students, and continuing and advanced education programs for dentists undergoing specialist training; including lectures, seminars, workshops and laboratory demonstrations. I have been responsible for organising and coordinating postgraduate courses, such as Clinical Cell Transplantation and Cell Signaling in Craniofacial Development. More recently, I was asked to act as Joint Coordinator for the Postgraduate Program in Regenerative Medicine, which is part of the Karolinska Institutet Tissue and Motion Network.

As an educator, my goal is to communicate my knowledge and experience to the students, to facilitate their learning and understanding, whether be through up-front lectures, small group seminars or one-to-one bench-side laboratory teaching. I try to achieve this by focusing on student-based education so that the students take responsibility for their own learning. I draw upon a number of different activities or approaches within classes to provide a dynamic, interesting and varied environment by which to achieve deep learning. One example in the OPH program during the formal lectures, I involve the students in sessions by asking questions and I include various activities, and I incorporate multi-media presentations into the classes. These activities pave the way to Virtual Histology sessions, where the students examine and subsequently present histological specimens to their fellow classmates.