A Note from the JADE Editorial Board Chair
By
Stefania Moglia Willis, RDH, MA, DMH
Clinical Associate Professor
Department of Dental Hygiene & Dental Assisting
This issue of the Journal of the Academy of Distinguished Educators (JADE) takes as its title "COVID & the Curriculum: Faculty Perspectives." These stories derive from the Zoom-enabled Clinical & Educational Showcase hosted in January 2021 by the Academy of Distinguished Educators that provided a platform for clinical faculty across departments to present the innovative ways in which they adapted teaching in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Links to those abstracts and accompanying recordings are available on the Abstracts page.
The JADE editorial board invited faculty presenters to create a series of narratives recounting the ways they were able to discharge teaching responsibilities during the pandemic. The subsequent papers include reports of resilience, concern for the well-being of patients, students, and faculty, the development of alternative assessment techniques and teaching methods, and indications of lasting improvements in the educational environment.
As health care providers, we face the challenges of change and uncertainty daily. The 19th century German physician and pathologist Rudolf Virchow stated that health care providers react to disease "… as life under altered conditions." Yet uncertainty and the desire to find answers initially drew me to health care and continue to inspire my love for teaching and learning. I hope you’ll agree that these shared narratives can help us as educators continue coping with the uncertainty that the pandemic has produced, find ways to transcend it, and integrate the lessons we’ve learned into the educational process as we move out of the pandemic. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as our editorial board has enjoyed bringing them to you.