Enhancing Participant-Centered Learning with Case Discussion in a Required Pharmacy Course
Yifei Liu, Ph.D.
In June 2010, I received a Teaching Enhancement Grant to improve participant-centered learning via case discussion in the course of U.S. Health Care System and Marketing. This is a required course for the Doctor of Pharmacy degree program and I am the course coordinator. The course has been offered in the spring semester since year 2009 at two campuses – Kansas City and Columbia. It consists of two modules associated with each other: U.S. Health Care System and Medication Safety, and Health Care Marketing. In spring 2010, I began to explore case discussion as a teaching method, but found that it was challenging to effectively choreograph discussion for a large size of students.
The grant supported me to attend a seminar of participant-centered learning organized by Harvard Business Publishing in August 2010. The seminar was entitled “Art and Craft of Discussion Leadership – Part I”. It lasted one day and a half on Harvard Business School campus, and was facilitated by two professors from Harvard Business School. The seminar covered essential topics in case teaching such as the roles of a discussion leader, skills like questioning, listening, and responding, and a teaching plan. Thereafter, I applied the knowledge and skills gained from the seminar to the course in year 2011. I selected three cases of health care marketing to organize six discussion sessions through the spring semester. These cases present unique views toward the online business model of a chain pharmacy, the pharmacy workflow, and the shift in medical care.
To examine the effect of attending the seminar on improving participant-centered learning in the course, I analyzed and compared students’ comments from their course/instructor evaluation between year 2009 and year 2011. The students in year 2009 were the comparison group since case teaching was not used at that time. A content analysis was conducted to analyze students’ comments. In addition, among items for instructor evaluation, there were two items directly related to case teaching – presentation of learning materials, and usefulness of learning materials. Average numerical scores on these items were compared. Because the average scores were only available in an aggregate manner, a statistical comparison such as a t-test could not be performed.
In year 2009, two themes were identified in students’ comments. First of all, not all students realized the importance of health care marketing in pharmacy. Secondly, students wanted to have more discussion. In year 2011, these themes did not appear, suggesting that the students realized the importance of health care marketing via case discussion. For both aforementioned items, compared with the evaluation scores in year 2009, the scores in year 2011 increased by at least 0.41 for Kansas City, and 0.18 for Columbia. The increase in evaluation scores imply that case teaching was an effective method to facilitate learning in year 2011.
To summarize, the knowledge and skills gained from the seminar helped me to improve participant-centered learning. This project has strengthened my beliefs in the interaction with students and the emphasis on applying marketing knowledge. At the completion of this project, I also wanted to express my appreciation to FaCET for its dedication to teaching and learning.