Reflections from a community service learning dental curriculum: students' values

Background: In the academic year of 2007/08, Faculty of Dentistry at University of British Columbia formally introduced the course 'Professionalism And Community Services' - PACS in the dental curriculum with Community Service Learning - CSL as an experiential learning pedagogy. While experiencing this community-based dental education, students kept a reflective journaling.

Objective: to illustrate the impact of continuing reflections on students' learning in the context of a newly developed dental course.

Methods: Students were encouraged to reflect 'before', 'during' and 'after' the development of their CSL projects. 121 students provided and are still providing individual reflections through email, a password protected intranet site (WebCT), or handwritten. Reflections were not grated and students were stimulated to favor thinking over description in at least 150 words. 83 students were from two classes of second years and 39 from one class of first years. Reflections were analyzed thematically for essential themes and categories.

Results: Students not only appreciated the community experience, but also pondered about their own learning as health care providers. 'Before' reflections emphasized expectations and feelings of belonging, whereas 'during' and 'after' reflections promoted the discussion of challenges and struggles, and of ongoing engagement, respectively. In circular and bidirectional manner, most students were able to reflect, re-think, re-consider, re-analyze, re-construct, and re-act upon their CSL experiences within PACS.

Conclusions: Reflective activity helped students to better appreciate a community learning experience in a dental curriculum. It allowed them to gain additional value from a community-based education with a positive impact on their attitudes about services, themselves, and the community in which they developed their CSL projects.