Professional teaching practices in the university: Various teaching styles for complex topics in odontological clinics

Abstract

This article presents the previews in one of the studied cases as a part of the research that the program team ‘Studies about the university classroom’ develops, regarding the training spaces for professional practice complex learning’s in the university, at Odontological degree course. One of the subjects of the Clinical Cycle –Removable Prosthesis- is taken as a studying case.  The analysis of what happens inside theoretical classes and very specially in the clinics allows us to recognize how students learn complex abilities in those contexts, including not only the operations they perform inside the patient’s mouth, but also communicational abilities and attitudes that aged patients treatment requires.  Two basic types are identified in which teaching style manifests: modeling and scaffolding giving rise to the recognition of when, how and towards what demands teachers take part in the odontological care that advanced students develop.