Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Pharmacy Teaching at a Midwestern University

Abstract

and students that the remainder of the semester would be taught using remote learning. The study objective is to determine how the change from the traditional classroom to remote learning impacted students and faculty. Pharmacy students were surveyed to ascertain how the transition to remote learning have impacted their learning. Additionally, faculty were surveyed using a semi-structured interview to assess their instructional efforts. The student survey findings identify several challenges impacting instruction, including online exam-taking and balancing time constraints. Faculty survey responses collected include themes of decreased student engagement, technology use and access, and transitions in the learning environment. Curriculum areas facing significant challenges during the pandemic include hands-on laboratory skills and experiential education which required multiple changes. Despite the challenges, faculty made the teaching transitions that they might not have otherwise tried. Assessing the impact of remote learning will continue to be important as the pandemic continues.

Facilitators and Barriers to Online Teaching and Educational Technology Use by University Lecturers during COVID-19: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Evidence

“…Accordingly, they reported being inquisitive and self-taught when it came to using online teaching tools and pedagogies. This autodidactic drive focused on the discovery, implementation, and evaluation of suitable tools [57,63,69,72,74,91,[94][95][96]. Other studies reported that lecturers swiftly changed their attitudes to overcome reservations towards educational technology and ERT [67,74,94,97].…”

The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on school‐level scholarly outcomes and research focus of pharmacy practice faculty

“…1 Major disruption started after a nationwide state of emergency was declared. Lockdown policies were thereafter led by states, 2 during which schools of pharmacy (SOPs) changed their modes of instruction to virtual/online-only or hybrid systems 3,4 to comply with their respective state-level lockdown policies while maintaining accreditation standards. 5 The COVID-19 pandemic also led to an increase and expansion of the clinical roles of pharmacists and changes in experiential education modalities for pharmacy learners.…”