Campus teaching and technology-enhanced tutoring are pedagogically effective if coursework, curriculum design, dynamic course modality, databases, digital resources, advanced spreadsheets, multi-media applications, and data analytics are properly instigated to accommodate new learning challenges, rather than the use of an online platform as an alternate workspace for campus teaching. This year, we move to a one-third corpus online in which MS Teams will be used as a platform for importing interactive educational applications in order to enable self-regulatory skills, quizzes, auto-grading, practical activities, and virtual patient blended learning, without detriment to face-to-face class sessions and clinic time.
In the implementation of an adaptive yet efficient infrastructure, clinics were equipped with new technology which simulates real-time clinical practice with patients during the first semester, in order to optimize the overall effectiveness of all courses. This also serves to maximize student engagement and student support during the present difficult situation. Although we acknowledge the sector-based challenges facing e-learning in health sciences education, the administration of HUE’s College of Dentistry will rigorously maintain interaction and collaboration between learners and facilitators, and take the necessary actions required to manage any problems that should arise. The impact on students’ acquisition of clinical knowledge will be measured regularly using immersive-virtual-reality and specially adapted dental clinics.