An Artistic Active-Learning Approach to Teaching a Substance Use Disorder Elective Course

Abstract

Objective. To incorporate an artistic, multimedia approach to teaching within a substance use disorder (SUD) elective course to intellectually, visually, physically, and emotionally engage Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) students in learning and applying clinical and legal SUD topics. Methods. Faculty members created a two credit-hour SUD elective course that required students to engage in visual, linguistic, and performing art forms, including acting, screenwriting, choreography, dancing, artwork, writing movie reviews, writing book reports, writing journal reflections, create-yourown-adventure storytelling, speech writing, examination writing, policy writing, and creative thinking in an escape room gaming environment to learn about SUD and related topics. Results. Student learning and perception of the activities was evaluated using faculty-created analytic rubrics, pre-and post-intervention tests, student feedback, and student responses on standard course evaluations. Students performed well on the graded assignments. Pre-and post-intervention tests administered for the escape room activity demonstrated an increase in scores from 56.7% to 94.9%. Student feedback and course evaluations revealed student engagement with subject material and enthusiasm for creative applications, critical thinking, and collaborative aspects of the activities. Conclusion. The PharmD students consistently rated the interactive class format highly on course evaluations and reported having the perception of simultaneously learning and having fun. Pharmacy instructors are encouraged to incorporate creative projects and activities in courses to enhance student learning experiences and increase student motivation to engage with the material, their classmates, and other professionals.

Better together: utilizing an interprofessional course and escape room to educate healthcare students about opioid use disorder

“…When several pharmacy or nursing students had to be placed on a team, the researchers attempted to have several institutions represented when possible. This finding is similar to other interprofessional escape room research as many of them have been conducted with pharmacy and nursing audiences [ 9 – 12 , 17 ]. One study aimed to prevent this problem by assigning roles to students when they started the escape room.…”

“…The escape room model has also been shown to facilitate communication and appreciation for an interprofessional approach to health care [ 11 ]. Furthermore, an in person escape room has been shown to improve pharmacy student knowledge with regards to SUD [ 12 ].…”

Assessing Student Readiness to Work with People Who Use Drugs: Development of a Multi-disciplinary Addiction Educational Survey

“…Insufficient addiction training and stigma among health professionals toward PWUDs contribute to this ongoing treatment gap. 1 Formal teaching of core addiction concepts improves addiction-related knowledge and increases trainee efficacy, while reducing addiction stigma among future health professionals in nursing, [7][8][9][10][11][12] pharmacy, [13][14][15][16] and medicine. [17][18][19][20][21][22] In particular, interprofessional courses show improvements in addiction educational outcomes and students' ability to work collaboratively in the team-based delivery of SUD care.…”