(PO-115) Evaluating Dental Faculty’s Perspective During Emergency Introduction of Online Teaching

Author: Aman Gupta, M.D. – Assistant Professor, University of Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry
Author: Ana Janic, D.D.S. MS – Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry
Author: Joshua J. Thomson, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor, University of Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry
Submitter: Aman Gupta, M.D. – Assistant Professor, University of Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry

Objectives: The March 2020 lockdown mandated institution closures and forced educators to provide remote instruction. We intended to gain an in-depth and holistic understanding of dental faculty’s experience and perceptions during this mandatory shift.

Insights were gathered in 6 key areas: prior remote instruction experience, magnitude of transition and frequency of instruction methods used, training received, preferred teaching methods based on how they promote student learning, interaction, engagement, and performance, social impact, and future of teaching.

Methods: An anonymous Qualtrics^XM survey was distributed to all dental faculty at University of Detroit Mercy in May 2020. Data was collected over a three-week period and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Statistics 26 (IBM; Armonk, New York, USA). Pearson chi-squared test and Fischer’s exact test were used to evaluate categorical data.

Results: Of the 30 participants who transitioned to online remote instruction, 16 (53.3%) reported an age between 30-49 years and 14 (46.7%) reported ≥ 50 years of age. Our analysis revealed that faculty in 30-49 years age range had no prior online synchronous teaching experience. The transition was described as interesting, useful, time-consuming, and challenging. In-person live teaching received highest number of first place rankings (50%) and online asynchronous method received highest number of last place rankings (42.86%). Faculty in > 50 years age range expressed maximum satisfaction with online small-group discussions and those in 30-49 years age group were more satisfied with one-on-one online discussions.

Conclusion: Our study finds that faculty gravitates towards online methods that are similar to their past in-person teaching environment. Greater exposure to various online teaching methods will likely lead to a greater adoption of variety of instructional methods. Although a hybrid model approach is becoming prevalent, our study strongly suggests that traditional in-person instruction will remain the most important method going forward.