Small Group Topic Discussions
Dates of Activities: 11/12/2020 and 1/22/2021
Setting: Arkansas Children's Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit
Length: 30 minutes
Description of Activity: I led two different topic discussions to small groups during my first year as a resident. The topics covered included bug-drug matching and a new medication for respiratory syncytial virus. These topic discussions were provided to different providers within Arkansas Children's Hospital in both the neonatal intensive care unit and the cardiovascular intensive care unit. These discussions both lasted 30 minutes. I spent time throughout the week prior to discussion (approximately 8 hours) preparing for the topic discussions. These topic discussions ranged occurred during several months throughout the 2020-2021 residency year.
Experience of Learners: Advanced Practice Registered Nurses and Medical Residents
Comfort level: I felt really confident going into these topic discussions because I knew that the providers would have a strong level of understanding of the topics, but also had areas to grow. I had prepared thoroughly for these discussions and had practiced giving both of them to my preceptor prior to the actual discussion.
Method of Teaching/Assessment: Prior to the topic discussions, I opened the floor to the providers to see if their knowledge was of the topic. This assessed their baseline level and helped determine the necessity of portions of the topic discussion. I provided a handout for both of these topic discussions and the providers kept the handout throughout at least the end of the month to use as a reference guide when talking about the topic.
Goals addressed:
Goal 3: Implement adaptive teaching methods to promote knowledge retention and meet individual learning needs.
Reflection: By participating in topic discussions involving providers with a strong medical background, it forced me to provide advanced knowledge on very specific topics. I was confident in these experiences because I knew the level of knowledge that my learners had going into the experience. These felt incredibly smooth to me because they felt less like a lecture and more like a true discussion or conversation. The learners asked very appropriate questions at the conclusion of the discussion that let me know that not only were they paying attention to what was being said, but that they were retaining the information and curious about more information regarding the topic. The kinds of questions that the providers asked during the first topic discussion helped me plan for the information that the second set of providers may have desired in the second discussion. I used the feedback from the first topic discussion to help guide exactly what I wanted to achieve in the second experience. I knew, however, that it would not be exactly the same because it would consist of a different topic within a completely different specialty unit. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to provide these topic discussions and will look to continue providing similar experiences.
Materials: Bug Drug Topic Discussion
Evaluations: Small Group Topic Discussion Evaluations
Case-Based Course
Dates of Activities: August 2020 to November 2020
Setting: Virtual through the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy Blackboard Collaborate
Length: 3 hours
Description of Activity: In the second and third year of pharmacy school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy, students participate in a case-based course within the Therapeutics I and II curriculum called recitation. The course provides a variety of disease state topics presented in the form of patient cases. Students present these cases and are evaluated based on their presentation and knowledge of the disease state. Also within this course, students must write SOAP notes about cases. This course occurred during the Fall 2020 semester. I spent approximately 10 hours a week preparing for the course. This time would fluctuate depending on my comfort with the material and the amount of material to grade.
Experience of Learners: Third pharmacy students
Comfort level: I felt confident about teaching this course because it consisted of disease states that I was comfortable with and it was a course that I had completed during my time at UAMS.
Method of Teaching/Assessment: Students were evaluated using a rubric provided by the instructors of the Therapeutics II course. It evaluated their presentation skills as well as their knowledge of the disease state. Prior to the presentations, I would answer questions about the disease state and clarify possible treatment regimens. After the presentations were completed, I would answer specific questions about the cases and clarify information afterward. Prior to beginning this course, I sent out a survey asking the students what their career plans were, how confident they felt in presenting material and how confident they felt in writing SOAP notes. I used these surveys to develop specific questions and provide useful feedback to the students.
Goals addressed:
Goal 2: Provide a variety of objective and quality written and verbal feedback to promote learner growth.
Goal 3: Implement adaptive teaching methods to promote knowledge retention and meet individual learning needs.
Reflection: This course was an experience that I was looking forward to as soon as I knew I was participating in the Teaching Certificate Program. It is incredibly unique and I knew it would test my limits as a teacher. I had high aspirations for myself and attempted to write specific questions based on student career interests and their exhibited level of knowledge. My hopes were to force the student to grow, but also provide real-life situations they may see in the career of their choosing. This endeavor turned out to be more challenging than I anticipated as I had difficulty with students showing up to class and being prepared as well. It got to the point where the questions were so specific that it almost felt like I was putting the student in their place, and I knew I needed to scale back. I asked the students during individual feedback sessions how they were feeling and started to tailor the course based on those comments. Many of the students following the year of recitation mention that they truly believed that the course helped them with their exams within Therapeutics II. I was also thankful to receive an evaluation from a teaching mentor during this course as well. I used many of the comments that she provided me with to grow as a teacher in my other activities. This included using better time management to make sure that the appropriate information was being given, but so that I was also valuing my learners' time. This is something that was also discussed during my learners' evaluations of my performance.
Materials: SOAP Note Learning Session
Evaluations: Learner Recitation Evaluations; Mentor Recitation Evaluation
Class Lectures
Dates of Activities: January 2021 to November 2021
Setting: Virtual through the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy Blackboard Collaborate
Length: 1 hour
Description of Activity: I was able to teach in three different courses in which I was a primary lecturer. This included two discussion-based courses and one true lecture-style course. During the discussion-based courses, I utilized primary literature to guide the discussion. We talked about the clinical impacts of the articles and how we use them in practice. One of the courses was focused on landmark studies while the other was on pediatric-specific topics. The lecture-style course was a medical school course for students interested in pediatrics. The topic I discussed was drug interactions. I taught two courses in March of 2021 and was involved in the Pediatric Clinical Skills Elective for the entire Spring 2021 semester. I spent about 15 hours preparing for the two lectures that I taught in March and 10 hours per week preparing for the pediatric course. Each lecture was 1 hour long.
Experience of Learners: Third pharmacy students and fourth-year medical students
Comfort level: I felt confident about teaching these courses. They consisted of topics that I was very familiar with and I felt like I had a strong enough background knowledge to prepare for the information each learner needed to gather from the experience.
Method of Teaching/Assessment: Overall course objectives were set by the course coordinators. I used these course objectives to frame the lecture objectives to make sure that the information given did not stray away from what the course was ultimately trying to achieve. I provided the students with lecture objectives and assessed them throughout the lecture by asking questions about the material I had just covered. Their progress with the questions allowed me to adapt my lecture to fit their overall progress throughout the lecture.
Goals addressed:
Goal 1: Develop clear lecture objectives to effectively guide learners through the learning experience
Goal 2: Provide a variety of objective and quality written and verbal feedback to promote learner growth.
Goal 3: Implement adaptive teaching methods to promote knowledge retention and meet individual learning needs.
Reflection: By participating in these courses, I was able to attempt to teach a multitude of different topics to different kinds of learners. In the study about the landmark studies, I taught pharmacy students about crucial anticoagulation studies and how they impacted the current landscape of therapy. The students started the discussion, so I was able to assess their knowledge of the study and the disease state. I enjoyed getting to provide real-life examples of how the studies impacted my practice. I received verbal feedback from the students and the course coordinator stating that I was able to create a relaxed environment that stimulated conversation. In the pediatric course, I helped with leading more of the discussion about traumatic brain injuries. I was able to point out areas of differentiation between what they had learned about adults in their didactic lectures versus what occurs in pediatric patients. The students expressed some confusion based on some of the terminologies that we commonly use in pediatric care, so I rephrased the wording of my lecture in parts to make sure that they were grasping the entire concept. Finally, with the medical school lecture, it was important to provide information that was pertinent for a doctor to know. For a pharmacist, there is a lot of pharmacology and pharmacokinetics that are essential for our practice, but that information may not be as clinically relevant for medical students. The ultimate compliment I received after this course from one student was that he felt like he could take the information he learned that day and immediately apply it to patients he was seeing on rotations.
Materials: Drug Interactions Class Lecture