This past fall, Penn Dental Medicine became one of only a handful of higher education institutions worldwide to be selected as an Apple Distinguished School for 2019-2022. Apple Distinguished Schools are centers of innovation, leadership and educational excellence that use Apple products to inspire creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. They showcase innovative uses of technology in learning, teaching and the school environment and have documented results of academic accomplishment. 

“The Apple Distinguished School designation honors our long-term commitment to using innovation and technology to enhance teaching and learning,” said Penn Dental Medicine’s Dean Mark Wolff. 

In 2015, Penn Dental Medicine rolled out its one-to-one iPad initiative, which provides each first-year student with an iPad, along with the digital learning content and comprehensive support to use it as an educational tool. The first week of school, incoming students receive “learner-ready” iPads with the relevant applications and settings pre-installed. Additionally, to date, 76 AppleBooks, or digital textbooks, have been developed with the support of the School’s Learning Technology Team (LTT), becoming primary classroom resources. 

This digital technology is transforming the learning process at Penn Dental Medicine as the passive lecture hall model is being replaced by “blended learning” and “flipped-classroom” models, which supplement traditional content with online resources and small group discussion. In addition, many exams and quizzes are now done on the iPads, using ExamSoft software.