Pediatric Centered Presentation

1. Running head: TAKING CARE OF YOUR TEETH 1
Pediatric Teaching Project: Taking Care of Your Teeth
Stacey Arnold Reese, Hayley Seal, and Rachel White
Texas A&M University Health Science Center College of Nursing

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Taking Care of Your Teeth
Project Description
For our pediatric teaching project, we chose to address dental hygiene. The target
population our presentation aimed to educate was fourth graders (ages nine to ten years
old). During our presentation, we taught the class how to properly brush and floss their
teeth, healthy snack options to promote dental hygiene, and the basics of orthodontics.
We chose these topics based on challenges that our target ages may face and used a Prezi
presentation, pictures, videos, and worksheets to aide in the delivery of our information.
Having memories of being around nine years old and speaking with parents who
have children approximately that age, we knew that getting them to brush their teeth as
often and as well as is recommended is often a challenge. To address this, we taught the
children how they should be brushing and flossing their teeth and how often they should
be doing so. We also provided them with a weeklong checklist that they and their parents
could use to keep track of their brushing and flossing (Nemours Foundation, 2015).
Because most children enjoy sweets and we were giving our presentation right before the
Easter holiday, we chose to also discuss examples of healthy snacks and how excess
amounts of sugar can harm your teeth. After showing the children visual examples of
healthy foods, we gave them time to complete a “Dream Snack Machine” worksheet in
which they drew pictures of their own personal choices for healthy snacks (Nemours
Foundation, 2015). Lastly, because our target population is approaching the age of braces
and other orthodontic work, we chose to teach them the basics of what that process
entails. We showed them a video to give them a visual idea of what would happen during
their first visit to the orthodontist (Braces Channel, 2013). We also shared our own

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personal perspectives of braces, the process of orthodontic work, and allowed the class to
ask questions.
When considering developmental stages during the process of designing our
presentation, we recognized that school age children enjoy activities that allow them to be
active as opposed to sitting still (Pittman, 2015). Based on this knowledge, we made our
post-assessment into an activity that would allow the children to move around the
classroom while still displaying how much they had learned from our presentation.
Evaluation of Learning
Our learning objectives were as follows:
1. Demonstrate proper brushing technique and describe proper brushing facts related
to brushing time, brushing frequency and flossing.
2. Develop a “Dream Snack Machine” utilizing the provided worksheet that
demonstrates knowledge of healthy snack choices that promote dental health
specifically.
3. Discuss the purpose of braces and how they’re applied.
A pretest and posttest were done to evaluate the effectiveness of our teaching and
determine if our learning objectives were achieved. A pretest establishes the baseline
knowledge of a group prior to the teaching. For the pretest, we asked the children to
respond verbally with either “true” or “false” to six statements. For instance, we asked
the class if the following statement was true or false: “It is okay to have sugary drinks
after you brush your teeth at night.” The majority of the class responded with “false.”
Overall, the class seemed to have a fairly strong baseline knowledge of dental hygiene,
healthy snacks and braces since most responded with the appropriate answer. However,

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when we had the class draw examples of healthy snacks on the “Dream Snack Machine”
worksheet, the class struggled with determining what was considered a healthy snack.
This created a great opportunity to provide further teaching on healthy snack options.
A posttest is done after the lesson is completed and measures the effectiveness of
the teaching. For our posttest, we did a “pick your side” activity where we asked the class
six questions and each child had to pick which side of the classroom they thought was the
correct answer. For example, we asked the class the following: “How often should you
floss your teeth? Walk to the left side if you think it’s once per week or walk to the right
side if you think it’s once per day.” For all six questions, the entire class walked to
correct side. This demonstrated that the learning objectives were achieved. However, we
believe that an individual quiz might have been a more effective way of measuring the
results of our teaching since some of the children might have not known the correct
answer and simply followed the crowd to the appropriate side.
Summary of Overall Experience
The presentation and lesson seemed to be helpful to the children. The aspects of
dental health and healthy snacking that we included in the lesson appeared to either
reinforce material the children already knew or clearly teach them new information that
would benefit their dental health in the future.
The worksheets were a useful strength of the lesson. Healthy snack choices were
encouraged by having them illustrate own their choices while good brushing technique
will be continually reinforced through the use of the weekly brushing checklist. The use
of a video also kept the children engaged and aided in their understanding of how braces
are applied.

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Due to the personalities of the children being taught and the particular day we
presented, the open answer pre and post-tests were a weakness in our lesson plan. The
class was very talkative and excited about their upcoming four-day weekend, so having
them respond out loud to the questions caused them to get off track. We noticed this
during our pretest, and made an effort to really encourage quiet answering and walking
during the pick your side posttest activity. Due to this change in our teaching style, the
class stayed on track much better during the posttest.
The main weakness we came across was due to us not being familiar with the
class personality, so the biggest change we would make would be to make an effort to
learn more about the class beforehand. To effectively teach and develop an effective
lesson plan more than just the grade level and age needs to be considered; the overall
class personality needs to be known as well. In the future, we would contact the teacher
and ask questions that would give us more information about the children so we could
avoid including activities that will get them off track, such as the open answer questions
we included.
Since we taught our lesson during the spring and the weather was starting to warm
up, a lesson on water and outdoor safety could be beneficial for this class. Even if the
children already know how to swim and to recognize hazards in nature, a fun refresher
could improve their adherence to outdoor safety guidelines. By making it fun to follow
rules about sunscreen application or poisonous plant avoidance, this class’ health could
be improved as they play outside.

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References
[Braces Channel]. (2013, May 27). Teeth Braces Braces for Kids- How Orthodontics
Work. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
EsgcLD51ciE
Dream Snack Machine [PDF]. (2015). The Nemours Foundation. Retrieved from
http://classroom.kidshealth.org/classroom/3to5/personal/nutrition/healthy_snackin
g_handout1.pdf
Pittman, A. (2015). Developmental perspectives for nursing [Powerpoint Slides].
Retrieved from https://tamu.blackboard.com/webapps/ blackboard/content/list
Content.jsp?course_id=_80855_1&content_id=_2803062_1
Super Smiles Checklist [PDF]. (2015). The Nemours Foundation. Retrieved from
http://classroom.kidshealth.org/classroom/3to5/body/parts/ teeth_handout1.pdf