Which method of teaching would be better; cooperative or lecture?

Most of the knowledge acquired through lecturing is forgotten rapidly. As dentistry is becoming a more complicated field of study and as new techniques are introduced, the use of modern educational approaches to promote lifelong learning becomes necessary. This study is to compare cooperative teaching method and lecture method in terms of their impact on student's learning and their satisfaction in school of dentistry in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. In this quasi experimental study sampling was census and all 9th semester students (60 students) taking theoretical orthodontics(I) were included. One topic, etiology of mandibular abnormalities, was taught to both randomly selected experiment & control groups. First, to assess knowledge & satisfaction of the students with lecture methods for etiology, a pre-test was applied. Then both groups were taught; the control group received instruction through lecture method and the experiment group formed 5-member subgroups and received instruction through cooperation. Then, both groups took a post-test. Data were analyzed through Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney U using SPSS 12. A significant difference was found between the mean scores of the student's satisfaction before and after applying the cooperative method. Also, there was a significant difference between the pre–test scores in the lecture group and the cooperative group (p<0.001), but no significant difference was observed between post-test scores of the two groups (P=0.1). The study showed that cooperative teaching method could be useful in teaching dentistry students and could enhance their intrinsic motivation, which in turn could improve learning quality.