Program Expansion to Meet Student and Workplace Needs
A Healthy Solution for Taking the Distance Out of Distance Education
Presented by:
Kimberly Krust Bray, RDH, MS
Professor and Interim Director
Institution and address:
University of Missouri-Kansas City
Division of Dental Hygiene
650 E. 25 th Street
Kansas City, MO 64108
Contact information:
(816) 235-2050 brayk@umkc.edu
Presentation synopsis: Distance learning provides a means to expand programs to meet the unique demands of learners challenged by multiple demands on their time.
Trends in higher education data suggest distance education is growing and likely here to stay. While only 25% of higher education institutions offered distance education courses in 1995, this proportion increases to 56% in 2000 1-2 . Despite the cautious entry by academic health education to distance delivery, distance learning is utilized for undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education. A chief concern regarding distance education for the health professions is quality of the experience. Such programs must maintain the same standards of excellence and competency achieved by traditional education. This has been accomplished by nursing programs reporting no significant differences in academic achievement when distance learning courses are compared with traditional on-campus courses.
3-4
Distance education has the potential for expanding student access, providing individualized instruction, and promoting active learning among geographically separated members of learning groups.
5 The ability of distance education to provide instruction among geographically separated members of learning groups makes it a plausible solution to expand programs need to meet the workforce shortage of educators in health care professions across the country. Concerns regarding dental hygiene faculty shortages were recently empirically studied. A study conducted 1996 showed that 36% of dental hygiene program directors had a full-time faculty position vacancy at their institutions between 1994 and 1996.
6 An alarming 68% of dental hygiene programs reported the anticipated need to replace full-time faculty in the next five years. In terms of actual head count, this equals 196 full-time faculty vacancies. The authors attributed shortages to the small number of master’s level programs in dental hygiene.
7 One proposed solution to the problem is the use program expansion via technology to maximize faculty resources and provide the advanced degrees needed to meet the educational needs of aspiring clinical dental hygienists not otherwise attainable by traditional means due to geographic or other reasons.
The graduate and degree completion programs at the University of Missouri-
Kansas City (UMKC) Division of Dental Hygiene have prepared dental hygiene educators for more than 3 decades. Recently, UMKC has designed an option to expand student access to the graduate and degree completion programs via computer mediated distance learning. The distance option utilizes a variety of asynchronous and

synchronous learning including: mixed media, print based, CD-ROM, web-based courses, and internet-based formats such as e-conferencing, chat rooms, bulletin boards and email. Students are held to a weekly content schedule but may complete weekly reading and PowerPoint presentation via a computer mediated Blackboard platform at their own pace and timetable. Course directors then facilitate enriched student centered learning via weekly E-conferencing utilizing Centra One. The synchronous e-conference sessions allow for clarification of content, sharing of experiences, etc. The live audio and video feed in the e-conference provides participants with a feeling of belonging. Student feedback demonstrates that they are overwhelmingly thankful for a delivery system that allows pursuit of an advanced degree without significant disruption of their work and family commitments. This is evident as one student was "impressed with the program's
'customfit' curriculum…flexibility to tailor it to my needs and career aspirations. This program represents just one model for successful program expansion to meet in this case dental hygiene educator workforce needs.
Learning Objectives:
At the completion of this presentation and discussion participants will:
1. Contemplate the potential role of distance education for dental hygiene undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education program expansion.
2. Differentiate between synchronous and asynchronous delivery models.
3. Examine a blended delivery model for postgraduate dental hygiene program delivery.
Bibliography
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Billings DM. A framework for assessing outcomes and practices in webbased courses in nursing. J Nurs Educ 2000;39:60-67.
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Oblinger, DG, Oblinger JL. Educating the net generation. Educause ebook,
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Wilder RS, Mann G, Tishk M. Dental hygie ne directors’ perceptions of graduate dental hygiene education and future faculty needs. J Dent Ed
1999;63:479-88.
7. Nunn PJ, Gadbury-Amyot CC, Battrell A, Bruce SI, Hanlon LL, Kaiser C, et. al. The current status of Allied Dental Faculty: A survey report. J. Dent. Ed.
2004; 68: 329-344.