We want to try and do this a different way of learning.
Learning that’s going to be a bit more interactive, helping to develop skills that employers need
for the future so developing things like critical thinking skills, employability skills, communication
skills, working with others because these are the all things that are needed by healthcare
professionals of the future.
We want to put a curriculum together that was based on sound educational theory and
something that would be sustainable for future generations of pharmacists in practise.
So we started this team based learning process in September 2012 and it’s been fabulous,
it’s just been phenomenal the success of it so far.
We sense that our students are really enjoying it as well.
We’ve got an awful lot of formal feedback mechanisms with our students and they’re
telling us that it’s working really well but then there’s the sense that I get as
I’m teaching in a session the students are coming prepared, coming ready, they’re taking
it seriously, they’re engaged and when you are wandering around the room facilitating
the session you can just hear the level of the conversation it’s far deeper than anything
we’ve experienced before in sessions.
Coming from college I found team based learning to be quiet new but quiet exciting at the
same time it’s completely different to what I was expecting and comparing it to a normal
University when you’re attending lectures it’s a great way of expressing yourself
and monitoring your progress in terms of learning and a great way of taking part in activities
which you wouldn’t usually be able to so using technology such as clickers we’re
able to constantly move forward in terms of the way learning delivered as opposed to just
attending lectures and having to absorb a lot of information in such a short time.
What’s different about pharmacy at Bradford is that we want to take a learner centred
approach to student learning so we’re going to use a new learning teaching strategy called
team based learning.
Team based learning works by helping to develop critical thinking skills, it helps to develop
independent learning skills, and it motivates students to come to class.
We want to make sure we’re developing students that employers want of the future to make
sure they have got those capabilities for employment in pharmacy in the 21st century.
Team based learning is a more effective way of learning we believe than traditional methods
because there’s an incentive for students to come to class, there’s incentive for
students to prepare for class because when they come to class they have it checked that
they have done the work in advance.
It’s more about not just learning in class but when their actually in class they’ll
learn how to use that new knowledge so when they’re doing that team test which they
do as a team between 5 and 7 people they get immediate feedback whether they have got the
answers right or wrong.
Actually what we are finding is the teams themselves are providing a lot of that supportive
learning so I can come in and help on those either the topics that need a bit little time
and effort or the students that need a little bit more support
At first everyone was in the same position they we’re like “Hi who are you?”
And “where you from?” and we all have different hobbies so it’s really nice to
meet people with different interests.
At the moment we’re helping each other we have one girl who’s really good at chemistry
and I’m more into the psychology side of it so we really help out each other in those
circumstances.
We have some people who are really good at explaining how they got to an answer so they
can explain their rationale whereas I am more into “why is this like this?”
There’s always that aspect of competitiveness but it’s friendly competitiveness you always
want to be one step ahead of the next team but at the same time you want to be sure of
yourself you want to be confident that your answer is the right answer.
We always try to make sure that our answer is right in the first place but our explanation
is always strong.
Rather than us giving a lecture and us not understanding or knowing whether that the
students have actually t what we have said.
This method gets you to do a test first; we get can immediate feedback from them on whether
they have understood on what we are saying.
We assess the students and we can go through those results in real time.
So if we can see there’s 30 per cent of the room are struggling on a concept I can
really focus my teaching on that part so rather than teaching on the bits we can do well we
can spend time looking at the bits that the majority are struggling on
Students will benefit from this new type of teaching really by being able to work with
each other, by developing those team working skills.
With team based learning it’s more fun it’s more enjoyable it’s more active learning.
It’s not just us sitting in a lecture theatre and absorbing information.
It’s discussing it with peers, it’s learning from peers and solving problems that we give
them in a meaningful and authentic way that they’ll need for practise in the future.
When our students graduate and they are practising as pharmacists they will be working in teams
and they will need those problem solving skills, those critical analysis skills, those communication
skills and we’re giving them the opportunity to practise that on a daily basis.
We believe that at team based learning we’ll make our students stand out in the crowd by
developing these skills for employment it will help to meet employer needs it will help
to develop communication skills, their collaboration skills, their teamwork skills.
Employers believe that those are the skills that we need for our pharmacy graduates for
the future to be able to work with each other and overall we believe it will help them to
become lifelong learners.