The Future of Education

The changing character of pharmacy practice necessitates the expansion of today’s role of pharmacists. Today’s pharmacists are expected to be more health professionals and patient counsellors, and less merely drug sellers. The delivery of the expanded pharmaceutical care, with patient-centered focus, requires a relevant set of social skills and poses new requirements for pharmacy education [1]. This paper presents work related to the project Staying Connected Through Connecting: Peer Learning and Peer Assessment in Pharmacy Education, being realized in the Bachelor of Pharmacy study program, Nord University, Norway. The project received three-year funding from The Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills and its goals are oriented towards strengthening students learning outcomes through active and collaborative methods of learning. One of the goals in the project is to strengthen students’ skills to identify, assess and handle complex pharmaceutical problems using knowledge from different pharmaceutical disciplines, e.g chemistry and social pharmacy. The main objective of this paper is to document and disseminate the results of one of the first stages of project realization. Within the course Pharmaceutical Analysis, a teaching activity was developed and tested using collaborative discussion - ‘Think-Pair-Share' as a learning method. The teaching activity was implemented in three phases starting with discussing possible solutions to a real-world problem.  Perceptual data collected from students show positive response to the use of ‘Think-Pair-Share' as a learning technique for enhancing engagement with the learning material. Both quantitative and qualitative feedback was prevailingly favorable and affirmative. These results encourage further experimentation with collaborative discussions and expanding their implementation to didactic work aiming at structured approach to training generic skills such as critical thinking and critical reflection. These skills are of critical importance for ‘reflective practitioners’ [2] and working on their development is one of the three main goals of the project.