We teach basic orthodontic concepts and procedures to dental and orthodontic professionals using online courses. How do we do this? Using specially-designed interactive online presentations, students focus on learning the objectives of the course. Then, with uniquely-designed Knowledge Quizzes, we measure the long-term learning and retention of those objectives of the course. Throughout the course, we collect granular data on all learning activities of the student and then report an analysis of that data back to the student and to the student’s mentor using the Student’s Dashboard. With this feedback, the student is able to adjust his/her learning methods to be more effective. With this data, the student’s mentor may compliment the student on learning progress or intervene if the student is having problems.

OrthoTraining presentations are “neuroscientifically” designed so that you learn faster and remember the important concepts (course objectives) longer. What does this mean? Research in brain “learning” has revealed that you have to interact with a concept in order to create new “memory proteins” in the brain’s cells. Interaction might be listing the steps of a task, asking and then answering a question correctly, performing a procedure correctly, and “thinking” about the important concept. OrthoTraining presentations, Knowledge Quizzes, and Clinical Performance Training Checklists are designed to help you learn quickly so you can accurately recall the information later when you need it.

The OrthoTraining method moves the educator from “the 19th-century one-room school house with one teacher responsible to teach all subjects to 25 students” to the “global classroom offering courses written by experts in their fields “teaching” interactively with each student and measuring each student’s learning so that a local mentor who cares about that student may help the student as needed.” What does this approach to teaching mean for the individual educator? Teachers become mentors. Their roles change from grading a student to helping a student learn. Mentors “brush up” on a course they are going to “teach” by taking the online course before the students take the course. This way, mentors become standardized in their knowledge with what the students will be learning so they know the issues the students may have with the course material. Mentors have their learning activities tracked as well, so they know the process the students are going to go through and how measuring learning works. The “teacher” becomes a mentor guiding the student, rather than a critic challenging the student. The student has the responsibility of learning the material. The student is held accountable for learning by the data reported on the Student’s Dashboard. Course grades are not “given” by the teacher. The data that measures the student’s learning activities determines the student’s grade for the course.

OrthoTraining has many specially-designed courses. You and your Mentor can select the group of courses that will be in your “Knowledge Profile” for you to learn, and can also set the time you think you will need to complete your courses, setting your own deadline. Research has shown that students are more motivated to start and focus their learning if they set their own goals. In education today, the teacher sets the deadline and students wait until the last minute to cram for the exam. When students pass an exam, they can then forget everything! They did not learn the material. When you complete a group of Knowledge Profile courses using the OrthoTraining method of learning and demonstrating what you have learned, you can then add other groups of courses and add more time to learn, setting new deadlines. Learning is not rushed. You control what you want to learn and how much time you think you will need.

All of us learn at our own pace. Some of us take more time, especially if we have had no experience with the topic. Also, if the language the course is taught in is not our native language, we will need more time to process the new words and information. If this is the case for you, you can “rewind and review” a section of a course until you really learn it and can explain the concept in your own words accurately. Some of us have had a lot of experience and breeze through many courses just refining what we know already. So, if you breeze through a course you can move on to the next one quickly taking much less time than average. With OrthoTraining courses, you can sign up for a month at a time and then add a month when you know you will need it. This also encourages you to be focused and efficient in your learning, starting it early, paying attention, answering questions correctly, and doing the work of learning.

Register now and get access to more than 40 courses produced by an ADA-CERP recognized provider.
OrthoTraining Awards Course Completion Certificates and CE credits valid in the US and Canada