Dr. Dennis Hartlieb

The Power of On-Demand Education with DOT

About the Episode

Have you considered the benefits of on-demand continuing education? In today's Sharecast Solo Bonding Series episode, Dr. Dennis Hartlieb shares with us his thoughts about a question he gets asked frequently - how did Dental Online Training begin? 

In this episode, Dennis shares about his experiences leading in-person on-demand courses and how the unique struggles he encountered during one of those trainings led him toward the creation of Dental Online Training.

About the Solo Bonding Sharecast Series

In the solo bonding series episodes, your host Dr. Dennis Hartlieb shares specific tips to help you with your dental practice. Dr. Hartlieb looks back over his thirty plus year career and shares insights he has gained along the way. 

To watch or listen to the first Sharecast episodes in this series, see the links below:

Three Tips for Building Your Dental Practice

DOT Origin Story: How Dental Online Training Began

How to Set and Achieve Goals in Dental Practice

Episode Highlights

What are the differences between in-person hands-on courses and virtual hands-on courses? In this Solo Bonding Sharecast episode, Dr. Hartlieb shares how Dental Online Training began.

Dennis talks about the primary problem he encountered when leading in-person hands-on courses and how that struggle led him toward the creation of Dental Online Training.
TRADITIONAL HANDS-ON COURSES

The Problem with Traditional CE

As Dr. Hartlieb shares in the episode, hands-on learning is essential because participants can work alongside instructors to master the techniques being demonstrated. 

However, as Dennis shares in the episode, there are many different types of learnings and levels of experience within the on-demand conference setting, and that can be extremely challenging for instructors. 

After a particularly frustrating experience with in-person training in 2018 where Dennis felt that he didn't serve any of the participants as effectively as he would have liked, he was ready to find a solution. 

The Limitations of Traditional CE

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Dr. Hartlieb shares about his experience teaching an in-person hands-on course in 2016 and the follow-up conversation that led to the genesis of Dental Online Training.
THE BIRTH OF DOT

How Dental Online Training Came to Be

After that fateful in-person hands-on training in 2016 with the wide range of participants, the seed of an idea began to form. 

From there, Dennis shares about how another hands-on training was performed and monitored. The double blind study of that training included two groups - those who participated in person with Dennis and those who completed the task using a virtual hands-on version of the course. 

The results confirmed what Dennis suspected: students were at least as successful, and often more so, when they completed the task using the virtual hands-on course. 

Dennis shares, "What we found was, the students who did it at their own pace, who were able to pause, rewind, zoom in, the results were actually a little better than when the participants were following along with me, which was quite humbling. Because I thought I was doing a pretty good job live.

"But it was sort of proof of concept for me that for many students, for many dentists, myself included, I do better when I can slow it down." 

How Online CE Complements In-Person Learning

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Dr. Hartlieb shares his thoughts about how online hands-on on-demand learning can complement traditional in-person continuing education.
ONLINE CONTINUING EDUCATION

The Benefits of Virtual Hands-On CE

As Dr. Hartlieb shares, virtual on-demand courses have a couple of major benefits including:

1. Students can watch the technique as many times as necessary. 

2. Students can participate from their office or home without having to be away from their practice.

3. Students can go at their own pace. 

As Dennis shares, "I do believe that if I can help dentists understand techniques better, understand the concepts better, practice a little bit before they go in and spend the money to travel and to shut down their office to pay the money for the honorarium or for the cost for doing these courses.

"If they can have a step up... if I can help them get to a modest level, that middle of the bell curve, or maybe even a little more accelerated, when they go to that course, they're going to get better, they're going to be able to ask better questions, and they're going to be able to improve the quality of their dentistry at a next higher level being in person.

"So again, I don't think virtual training is going to replace in person training. But I think it can help accelerate the learning of our students, of our dentists, and help improve the quality of the dentistry that we have for all our patients." 

On-Demand Hands-On Clip - Peg Lateral Course

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Here's an example of Dr. Hartlieb's on-demand hands-on approach in action. 



Dennis Hartlieb, DDS, AAACD

DOT Founder

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