ADEA Takes Notice of Jun Hwang’s Effort to Implement TA Program

Jun Hwang DMD 12 saw a need for teaching assistants among his third-year class at GSDM. And he decided to do something about it. Hwang is a natural born leader with no shortage of ambition. Two years ago Dean Jeffrey Hutter saw Hwang’s leadership abilities and asked him to serve as a student representative for the ADEA Council of Students Residents and Fellows (COSRF).

“As a student representative to COSRF, I’ve attended many ADEA meetings,” explained Hwang. “One of the things I brought back from these meetings was the idea of creating a Teaching Assistant program, similar to what many other dental schools already had. So in conjunction with BU ASDA, we have been working to develop a TA program in our School.”

The TA Program is currently in a pilot-stage at GSDM and is being tested in Predoctoral Removable Prosthodontics. In prior years Predoctoral Removable Prosthodontics has utilized fourth-year students in teaching assistant roles, but under the pilot program, this is the first time that third-year students have assumed TA roles.

Explained Clinical Professor and Director of Predoctoral Removable Prosthodontics Dr. Ronni Schnell, “By being a peer teacher, students help each other to learn and learn themselves by teaching.” Dr. Schnell also emphasized that being a TA is not easy, but can be immensely rewarding, “Calibration is a must, so at times our TA’s are requested to shadow the faculty and at times, they are challenged to take on more responsibility.”

Hwang hopes to expand the TA Program into all of his class’s preclinical courses. He acknowledges and thanks Student Affairs and ASDA for helping him to achieve this goal.

The full profile of Hwang from ADEA’s May 2011 Bulletin of Dental Education is available here.