Integrating Information and Evidence-Based Oral Health Literacy Into An Expanded Dental Hygiene Curriculum: A Faculty-Librarian Collaboration

Abstract

Introduction: With the increased emphasis of evidence-based practice, early development of information literacy (IL) as well as other literacies (e.g., oral) is becoming widely accepted in medicine and allied fields. With long-standing programs, however, integration of IL instruction is often unplanned at the programmatic level leading to deficiencies in advanced students and frustrations for students and faculty. This project integrates lesson plans, assignments, and assessments that support dental hygiene and other health fields but also support general education and provide transferrable skills for any major.

Aim: The school has expanded its Dental Hygiene curriculum from a two-year program to a four-year Bachelor of Science. We have used this opportunity to plan for ideal integration of information and oral health literacy instruction and evidence-based practice across the new curriculum. Advanced courses in dental hygiene emphasize evaluating specialized literature for both quality and currency with requirements for literature reviews in the third year and a capstone research project in the fourth. Information literacy integration, particularly at the introductory level, should give the required fundamental skills. Well planned scaffolding of basic IL skills in early courses removes the need for extensive IL skill remediation and lost time in advanced courses.

Method: The curriculum has been mapped at all levels, from introductory courses to the capstone experience, with an eye to classes with research projects and learning outcomes that fit with the new Framework for Information Literacy (recently adopted by the Association for College & Research Libraries). Library and Dental Hygiene faculty have collaborated not only to adapt existing undergraduate and oral health pedagogies and assessments but also to create new ones which are appropriate for integration into the various courses. Courses have heavy librarian integration and embedding, both in the classroom and the course management software, as well as asynchronous learning tools, with opportunities for team teaching and robust student assessment (including authentic assessment).

Results: This presentation reports on the planning of the new curriculum and the information pedagogy integration, the preliminary results of the first cohort to experience it, as well as the plans for the rollout of other integrated courses in the coming semesters. First year courses have evolved beyond their previous IL content with the inclusion of annotated bibliographies and research papers in discipline specific courses. This early introduction has elevated the level of student performance, and cultivated a culture of higher expectations of intermediate and advanced students.

Conclusion: 2016 marks the official beginning of the new curriculum and the first opportunity to really integrate IL at the introductory level. The integration of oral health specific content has been particularly challenging at this level since students are not yet officially in the clinical program. In fact, the majority do not continue on in dental hygiene so a balance must be found that provides introductory students with IL skills general enough to be transferrable to disparate majors but specific enough to prepare students for the dental hygiene program or similar parallel planned careers in health science.