Homework #4
Over the course of DH04, community and dental health promotion has taught me many things. I am going to be focusing on the elementary school project we did, where we picked a topic to present to a group of elementary students. We got to lesson plan and present to a class of grade 4 students.
This assignment, along with the in-class component has helped me learn different methods of teaching, and pick out activities that were correct for the age range. It was interesting doing research and picking out different topics, animations and information to give out to the students to teach them in an online classroom. Doing this project made my group think outside the box and think of ways to engage young students with short attention spans over a screen. This opportunity allowed us to learn many things about teaching and how to promote health to a younger age group.
Learning to adapt to new teaching methods and planning out a whole lesson from scratch had strengthened many abilities as a dental hygiene student. For starters, it has helped me gain confidence when talking to younger clients and how to engage them in active learning. It has also helped me be able to analyze information to pick out videos, topics and engaging material to present to different age groups. Even though I have previously done this project in Dental Assisting, re-learning how to do this over COVID19 strengthened my abilities even more than before.
With all the new learning I gained, I am able to apply the information to future endeavors. Being able to adapt to new circumstances, and learn to portray information in different ways will help me when teaching information in the future. I will be able to pick out resources for clients so they will be able to learn in ways that are effective for them. I have also learned how to answer questions in different ways in order to make the individual understand what I am saying.
My team had definitely reached our goals. During out presentation, the children we presented to were engaged the whole time, and when quizzing them on the information provided almost all the student were able to recall the information and answer questions correctly. Our main goal was to create an effective presentation for the students as our topic was a little bit harder (we did anatomy of a tooth). After our presentation, the students had 30 minutes worth of questions, which proved that they were engaged in the topic and were excited to learn.
This project has allowed us to implement some of the guidelines set out by the Ottawa Charter. We were able to promote health to a group of students that was helpful and informative. We were able to provide resources and a great learning experience to promote oral health. We were also able to advocate for good oral health.
Overall, this assignment has strengthened my abilities and will help me with my student and future endeavors. This will help me be better in both my student life, and my future career.