staffing in sim lab

[kdanderson1]

Hello,
I'm curious to know if any other schools are suffering from a shortage of instructors? Waits of up to 45 minutes to have an instructor come around and examine ones progress in sim lab are not at all uncommon. We spend one day a week in lab and I would bet that I spend a quarter to a third of that time waiting for some "instruction". When we finally do get an instructor to look at what we have been doing they are in a hurry cuz of the long line of other students.
I am aware of the stats about the 400+ unfilled instructor positions nationwide, but, well, I don't care. Either pay more, recruit more or drag some of the Administrators out of their offices and throw them on the floor. I have gone from looking forward to this class to absolutely hating it. So, are other schools similiar?
D

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[ShawnOne]

what school do you attend?

 

[ItsGavinC]

Excellent post. We'll be in the Sim Lab two days a week starting in January, and I'll let you know our status then. We DO have a smaller class size, and our sim instructors average out to 1 per ~ every 12 students. I'll get back to you in a couple of months.

 

[UBTom]

Here at my school, the student-to-faculty ratio during preclinic-lab is approx. 7 to 1. Not too bad... It's only during the "rush" periods right before a project is due that a line builds up. Otherwise I've never spent more than 10 minutes waiting for an instructor to come over to evaluate what I'm doing.

We can also go directly to the course director during his office hours to get things signed off if our assigned proctor is unavailable.

Though the experience was pretty benign, I don't miss it.

 

[ShawnOne]

Tom, you wrote "faculty-to-student ratio during preclinic-lab is approx. 7 to 1" I am sure you meant 1 to 7. I had a visual of 7 instructors standing over my shoulder. Scarey

Gavin, I dont think class size is really important. At NYU they said although they have 200+ students, the ratio in the labs are kept at 1 instructor per 10 students.

 

[UBTom]

LOL, the typo has been corrected.

Congrats by the way.

 

[DrRob]

kdanderson1 - sounds like you go to marquette. Operative instructors spent more time in the coffee room than in the clinic which lead to some people signing off there own work!

 

[scandalouslj]

We also have around 10-15 students per instructor and ive never really waited more than 15 mins. The way dent sim lab works I know dent sim and sim lab are different, but i figured this still might help) is we spend 1 days a week for 2 hours in there and then are allowed to come in after school 1 days a week for 2 hours if we would like where there is a TA. We are instructed to do some type of prep which the teacher goes over at the begging of class and then we work at our own pace. We dont have any projects or anything do, but we will have a test in wich we will have to prepare a #18 class 2A prep ( i think that what its called-a deep box medially with a cross across the occlusal surface) Which will be factored into our GRD grade next semester. For GRD (3x times a week next semester) they are switching to mannequin heads instead of the articulators..sorry to get off topic, but do any other schools use these?

 

[ItsGavinC]

Originally posted by ShawnOne

Gavin, I dont think class size is really important. At NYU they said although they have 200+ students, the ratio in the labs are kept at 1 instructor per 10 students.

I don't follow you. OF COURSE class size is important.

Either: the school has to hire more faculty to be with the students to keep the ratio low, or, the school splits the dental class up into groups and they each get time in the sim-lab.

Either way the class size is important. We're talking about ratios, how could it NOT be impportant?