Critical-thinking and problem-solving are two of the most frequently espoused goals for student learning across disciplines. As part of a current major revision of the dental school's curriculum, faculty recognized that many students struggled to translate information from the classroom and use it later during their clinical experiences in the context of patient care. Two new first year courses were developed (Cariology I and II) to enhance and facilitate critical-thinking, problem-solving, and use of evidence-based information for dental caries (dental decay) detection, diagnosis, risk assessment, prevention and management. We are interested in investigating what are the long lasting student learning outcomes from the critical-thinking and problem-solving components assessed in these courses. Specifically, does early assessment correlate with these skills being demonstrated in later years during decision-making in clinical patient care? The key purpose of our participation in the ISL (Investigating Student Learning grant) community is to systematically develop and pilot assessment rubrics derived from data from our existing course and clinical activities and/or consider piloting additional assessment strategies of critical thinking during our didactic and clinical courses throughout the curriculum, and assess the relationships between initial and long-term follow up assessments. Pedagogical activities focused on teaching critical thinking and assessment of long-term transfer of learning developed and tested as part of this proposal will have implications for teaching and learning not only for dentistry, but broadly within higher education, as these are key educational goals now-a-days of most disciplines.