Lecturers in the Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience deliver innovative 3D dental anatomy teaching and examination in Canvas

21 Jun 2021

Dr André Toulouse and Dr Mutahira Lone, lecturers in the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, have developed an innovative blended learning approach which incorporates online 3D models for teaching and examining of dental morphology into Canvas.

During the past academic year, the implementation of COVID-19-related restrictions limited student attendance on campus. This introduced issues for the delivery of the AN2008 - The Dental Morphology, Histology and Embryology module, as one of the main learning outcomes is the capacity of learners to recognise the three-dimensional features of teeth and identify individual teeth. The module is usually taught using extracted teeth and resin models.

To circumvent some of the issues, Drs André Toulouse and Mutahira Lone, from the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, developed an innovative blended learning approach that included online 3D models for teaching and examining of dental morphology. The teaching material made available to students included a number of digital teaching tools such as lecture recordings, lecture notes, 2D dental morphology cue cards, but in particular 3D models of individual teeth were embedded in the Canvas VLE platform for study. The models could be accessed through an interactive dental charting grid, could be rotated freely by the learner and had key identification features labelled. Unlabelled models were also used during live interactive sessions with the lecturers and practice quizzes.

The examination was a Canvas VLE quiz where the students had limited time to identify previously unseen 3D models of a teeth and give the correct answer using a dental notation system. Results were in line with previous examinations performed using extracted teeth, suggesting that students have achieved some of the learning objectives. Feedback collected shows that the students used these 3D models extensively for studying tooth morphology and that models were their preferred learning tools together with the live interactive sessions. The results of this study are published in Journal of Dental Education.

This is the first time that the Canvas VLE was used for 3D teaching and examination in the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience.

The 3D models used for examination were created by a collaboration between the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience and the Cork University Dental School and Hospital.

Photograph B.Riedewald