Seven Years Experience Using Blended Learning in Pediatric Dentistry

Objectives: This study describes our experience of integrating an open-source course management system (CMS) called Moodle (the modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment) to support teaching and learning of pediatric dentistry to 12 groups of last-year undergraduate dentistry students (n=700) from University of São Paulo.

Methods: It is a longitudinal case study of twelve prospective cohorts (undergraduate students) and includes the creation of courses in a virtual learning environment. The integration of the Moodle course into our teaching was assessed using online grades activity, student examination marks and feedbacks from students. The freely available Moodle platform was simple to use, helped to effectively deliver course materials, and has features that allowed cooperative learning.

Results: Students who used the CMS throughout their academic year commented favorably regarding its use as a complement to the face-to-face classroom sessions. The group of students that used the CMS obtained significantly higher scores in the final examination compared with the group that did not use the CMS. In addition, there was a significant correlation between student participation and performance in their final examination marks.
Conclusions:
The implementation of new technologies in the teaching-learning in undergraduate still has restrictions but most students benefit from using blended learning. We recommend blended learning using the Moodle platform as a useful tool for educators who are interested in integrating web-based learning into their existing curriculum teaching.