Assessment of educational coordination of 9th semester theatrical lessons of dental university with presented lesson plans (2009-2010)

If we accept that the training of a person occurs based on the acceptance of moving from one existing reality to another, education without lesson plan won't be efficient.(1)

Generally, planning training courses based on learner needs and training based on lesson plan lead to effectiveness of training courses.(2)

Lesson plan is defined as a process for the determination of appropriate educational goals and diagnosis of issues , needs ,facilities ,and limitations which are on the way of reaching educational goals. Having appropriate curriculum and lesson plan, creates a lively  and active atmosphere  in the class and encourage students to participate in the process of learning-teaching(3).Lesson plan is the written description of the learning process in which it is shown what, how, when, and where should be learned and is evaluated(4).

Although one of the most important tasks of teachers is teaching;most of the teachers are not much prepared for teaching at the beginning of doing their job.(5)

In recent years curriculum and having lesson plan in universities of the Ministry of Health have been taken in to consideration and universities have made the instructors familiar with this process by holding educational workshops.(6)

Although being aware of the methodology of writing a lesson plan by a teacher and the way of using  available educational facilities by him ,and accuracy and correctness of plans in an educational environment  are the first steps in curriculum planning by the principals in improving the level of curriculum planning but in the next step the correctness of  the performance of the planned curriculum  in the class, determines the real value of this planning  and essentiality of time for training and planning lessons.

Obligation in sticking to dictated curricula by university chiefs such as  writing lesson plans ,because of using evaluation fulcrum are done well until the step of writing ,but when this educational plan is supposed to be used and be effective may not be applicable because of different reasons and also the people in charge have just cared about standard writing of the lesson plan.(4,7)

According to the fact that the goal of lesson planning is using its advantages in improving education ,and its correct style of writing does not help in its positive effect ,the purpose of this study was to survey the coordination of  the  training of  theoretical lessons of the ninth term of dentistry faculty of Mashhad with the lesson plans of 1388(2009).

Method

In this descriptive cross-sectional study, all the theoretical lesson plans which were submitted to students or education office by the instructors in the ninth term of 2009-2010 were recollected. Each lesson plan generally included subject, the name of the instructor, and behavioral goals besides the educational content of that part of the lesson. Ten students who were the top ten based on total average participated in this study. These students attended the classes and moreover all the material covered in the class which were normally recorded by the students were given to them in the form of a CD with a draft of the lesson plans .Students were asked to study the sources of each lesson and then listen to the audio files of that lesson and according to the given lesson plan study the coordination of specific goals mentioned in the lesson plans and teaching to see if the instructor's teaching covers each specific goal or not.

Then the filled forms of each subject were collected .For each session of teaching the average of  the frequency of the coordination of education based on written goals in the lesson plan according to students' opinion were recorded.

By using the opinions of the Educational Development office of the faculty as the professional group, the quality of the rate of the coordination of  teaching with lesson plan was determined as follows:

coordination average of  more than 90%:excellent

coordination average of 70-90%:good

coordination average of 50-70%:average

coordination average of less than 50 %:weak

                                                  Then the data was presented  descriptively.

Results

Theoretical lessons of the ninth term of the dentistry faculty of Mashhad  from 2009 to 2010 included 7 subjects related to 7 educational groups of pediatrics,surgery,restorative,endodontics,orthodontics,radiology and periodontics .The lesson plans of the education office which were submitted by the instructors included 28 topics.

For the group of pediatrics 4 topics ,for oral surgery 5 topics ,restorative 7,endodontics 9,and orthodontics 3 topics were available in the education office .Also no lesson plans based on the subjects of the ninth term form the courses of the groups of periodontics and radiology were not submitted to the education office .Totally 28 topics (57%) of 49 taught topics with lesson plan were available to students.

The average of the opinions of the students were as follows:

1_In pediatrics 4 lesson plans were evaluated ,with the average of 96.25% it was coordinated with the class teaching and in this group the most coordination went to the courses of Systemic Disease of Children and Injuries of  sprout of permanent teeth with the average of 97% and the least coordination related to the course of Traumatic Injuries of Pediatric Teeth with the average of 95%.

2_In the group of surgery 5 topics were evaluated it was coordinated with the class teaching  with the average of 74.8% and in this group the most coordination related to Infections and Their Control in Surgery with the average of 88% and the least coordination related to the course of Familiarity with Electrolytes of the body during surgery cleft lip and palate  with the average of 62%.

3_In restorative group 7 lesson plans were evaluated ,with the average of 81% was coordinated with class teaching and in this group the most coordination related to the course of Restoration in the Change of Dental Colors with the average of 98%and the least coordination and the coordination related to the course of Restorations of   cleft lip and palate          with the average of 62%.

4_In the group of endodontics 9 lesson plans were evaluated ,it was coordinated with the teaching with an average of  92.33%and in this group the most coordination related to traumatized Teeth and Luxation Injuries and the Relationship of Endodontic and Periodontic with an average of 100% and the least coordination related to the course of New Tools and Rotary System in Endodontic with an average of 74%.

5_In the group of orthodontics ,3 lesson plans were evaluated which were coordinated with teaching with an average of 98.66%and in this group the most coordination related to the Relationship of TMDs and Orthodontics and Biomechanics in Orthodontics with an average of 99%and the least coordination related to the course of Diagnosis in Orthodontics with the average of 98%.

In general survey of the groups ,the groups of pediatrics, endodontic ,and orthodontics had the high coordination of higher than 90%(excellent) and restorative and surgery groups had coordination of 70-90 %(good).

From the group of pediatrics the lesson plans of the courses of                         ,Movements and Growth of Teeth in Children, Handicapped Children and their Control and TMJ Disorders  in Children;in restorative group the lesson plans of  tooth colored inlays and onlays and the Relationship of  Periodontics and Restoration ;from the group of endodontics the lesson plans of   Pulp life  and Pain Mechanism and Methods of Controlling it in Patients;from the group of orthodontics the lesson plan of the course of Sefalometri Analysis were not available in the education office.

Conclusion

The results of this study showed that the rate of the coordination of  the training given to the students with the planned lesson plans by the instructors in theoretical courses were different in various groups.

The most coordination existed in orthodontics group and the least in oral surgery.

The process of writing a lesson plan in a key process in education .The main goal of preparing a lesson plan is organizing the educational activities of an instructor   ,facilitating the learning process of the learners ,communicating, and also helping to evaluate the teachers by the education office.

Lesson plan as a guide for organizing the teaching material of the instructor with the aim of helping learners to reach predetermined educational goals.(8,9)

The results showed that out of 7 courses adopted ,getting access to the lesson plans of two educational groups was not possible for the students.Among the courses which lesson plans were submitted ,some were not accessible.

The present results are harmonious with Nikbakhsh(10) and Naderi(11)'s study that in most of the cases the lesson plans were not submitted in the written form at the beginning of the term.In Mansourian's study 56% of the instructors had handed in lesson plans in one term(12)which matchwed very much our study results (57%).In Bazrafkan et al's study in the case of the viewpoint of instructors toward lesson plan ,the instructors believed that lack of time for the full presentation of the topic and the possibility of not being able to perform the whole lesson plan can be the reasons of not presenting a lesson plan and curriculum.(14)

 The unavailability of a complete coordination  in the present study and according to the inaccessibility of some of the lesson plans of the instructors which were not written or available to the students ;it seems that the coordination of the presented courses in the class with the mentioned goals in in groups and different topics has been different and although there is a lot of coordination in most of the topics ,some of the  courses need to be revised and planned again by using the planned lesson plans for using in the class.

Suggestions

1_Studying strategies for distributing the lesson plan before presenting in the class.

2_Conducting a study for surveying the reasons of in coordination of  the presented courses and the planned lesson plan  and ways of solving this problem.

3_Evaluating the instructors for giving a feedback in curriculum planning.

Acknowledgement

The researchers would like to thank the EDO and Education Office of the Dentistry Faculty of Mashhad  and Research Deputy of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences for their sincere cooperation and financial support .This study is derived from a thesis with the code of 2505.