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Why choose the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Education
98% of our Nursing graduates are in graduate-level employment (Guardian, 2024)
100% of Health graduates went into highly skilled employment or further education (HESA, 2023)
£5,000 a year available with the NHS bursary.
About the course
This innovative flexible course combines face-to-face online and practice-based approaches to provide a rich range of learning teaching and assessment opportunities. It will enable you to develop your practice as a dental educator and trainer in both professional practice and educational settings.
Build your skills as an educator scholar and educational leader able to support the development of dental care professionals their teams and the wider organisation. This course has been designed with the diverse educational roles and responsibilities of dental educators in mind with a focus on the contemporary practice of dental education in both higher and professional education contexts. It gives you the opportunity to deepen your understanding of dental educational practices and broad your expertise in areas of particular interest.
The course is accredited by the Academy of Medical Educators.
Why choose this course?
- It is relevant to dental care professionals working in the NHS higher education professional bodies and the private sector
- Its part-time blended-learning approach helps you maintain your work/life balance while studying
- It enables you to adopt a critical analytical and reflective approach to dental education and its practice placing it within its historical and contemporary contexts
- You learn from academics who are established medical and dental educators with experience spanning undergraduate and postgraduate dental medical and healthcare education
Interested in the course? Please make sure you submit your application by 1 July 2024.
Course schedule
The PgCert Dental Education includes 2 units, over two semesters.*
| Time | Location | Date |
| 10:00 - 4:00 | Bedford campus | Fri 27/9/24 |
| 10:00 - 1:00 | Online | Mon 21/10/24 |
| 10:00 - 4:00 | Bedford campus | Tuesday 5/11/24 |
| 10:00 - 1:00 | Online | Wednesday 27/11/24 |
| Time | Location | Date |
| 10:00 - 4:00 | Bedford campus | Monday 20/1/25 |
| 10:00 - 1:00 | Online | Monday 10 /2/25 |
| 10:00 - 4:00 | Bedford campus | Friday 7/3/25 |
| 10:00 – 1:00 | Online | Friday 28/3/25 |
*All units are core, face to face contact takes place at Bedford campus, exact teaching rooms will be communicated via our online system (BREO) – dates may be subject to minor changes
Get in touch
For more information please contact the course lead Dr Hoda Wassif via email hoda.wassif@beds.ac.uk
Course Leader - Dr Hoda Wassif - Associate Professor in Medical & Dental Education
I am a Principal Lecturer in Medical & Dental Education and Portfolio Lead Pre-Professional & Continuing Health Education Portfolio, part of the School of Nursing and Health Education.
As portfolio lead, I offer academic leadership and support related to a range of courses in Pre-Professional and Continuing Health Education including; Advanced Nursing Practice, Nursing Associates, short courses in health systems as well as Medical & Dental Education.
What will you study?
Clinical Education In Practice
How can I develop an informed approach to teaching, learning and assessment in order to be an effective and innovative Medical, Dental or Healthcare educator?
In addressing the central question above, the unit provides you with opportunities to:
· Explore effective strategies for teaching, supporting learning and assessment
· Consider the roles and responsibilities of Medical, Dental, Healthcare educators including issues of consent and ethical practice in clinical teaching
· Critique the key features of real, simulated and virtual learning environments
· Promote best practice and innovation in learning, teaching and assessment
Develop an on-going action orientation to your development as an educator.
Understanding Learning In The Workplace
This unit addresses the central question - what are the contested conceptual bases of learning within the workplace learning and how do they shape approaches to education and training in medicine, dentistry and health?
In addressing this question, the unit provides you with opportunities to:
· explore the socio-political factors that explicitly and implicitly influence the design, delivery and assessment of education and training within your own professional context.
· become familiar with emerging conceptions of workplace, work-based and practice learning and consider their relevance in relation to learning in your own workplace contexts.
· develop an ability to critique reform of education and training within your own professional context, and ideas of teaching, learning and assessment that underpin these.
. provide you with the opportunity to develop academic literacies, including critical reading, reflective and academic writing.
How will you be assessed?
The assessment strategy for the course combines formative and summative elements i.e assessment for learning and assessment of learning. It is designed to foster strong links between learning on the course and the lived realities of dental educators working in a range of clinical and academic contexts. It is also designed to enable you to evidence your achievement of standards for dental educators in order to satisfy requirements of professional bodies and organisations.
The choice of assessments is determined on the basis of their fitness for purpose i.e. to evidence achievement of unit learning outcomes at masters level (Level 7). However they also rehearse writing for a range of academic purposes; an early assessment point in Clinical Education in Practice unit is designed to rehearse writing in the reflective genre and Harvard referencing conventions. Later assessments move to writing in the academic genre within the traditions of the social sciences.
Increasing emphasis is placed on academic literacy and the ability to present complex ideas coherently with reference to appropriate literature. Plentiful opportunities are built in to the course to rehearse these skills e.g. exercises in problematising practice in assessing exemplars of actual (anonymised) assignments using the criteria we use on the course.
By modelling and analysing best practice in educational assessment you will gain confidence and skills in critiquing using and developing their own approaches to assessment. To enhance your understanding and experiences of assessment practices (relevant to your role as an educator) you will encounter a wide range of assessment methods.
Examples of assessment methods used across the course are: Reflective report writing (e.g. Clinical Education in Practice); critical appraisals (Understanding Learning in the Workplace; literature review (Understanding Learning in the Workplace) Teaching and Learning patchwork (Clinical Education in Practice)
Careers
You will be able to expand and develop your educational roles and responsibilities within your current employment. It also opens the way to more senior roles in education if you continue your academic studies and complete a postgraduate diploma or full Master’s in Dental Education.
