Pharmacy promotes new learning environments
New Pharmacy working environment
Students from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences will be the first to experience a new cutting-edge learning space, enabling new formats of teaching and providing students with an opportunity to practice in a virtual environment.
The new Professional Practice Suite is the first of its kind in Australia with two large, flexible tutorial rooms each with individual computer facilities for 30 students, two groups of four consulting rooms for professional consultation and assessment, along with a social learning space for informal work groups.
The modern spaces, designed by Paul Morgan Architects, have incorporated the faculty’s innovative approach to learning through new teaching technologies.
Launching with the new space is MyDispense, an educational purpose-designed computerised dispensing program to be used in the professional practice suites. Being a web-based program it also allows students to complete revision exercises at a time and place of their choosing.
MyDispense was designed by the faculty to support its learning objectives and works in a similar way to commercial dispensing programs, including reading electronic references, selecting a drug, accessing the drug safe, reviewing labels, speaking with a patient, calling the patient’s doctor, as well as providing students with feedback on their performance, all in a virtual environment.
"I describe the MyDispense program as 'dispensing with training wheels'," explains Associate Professor Jennifer Marriott, course director for the Bachelor of Pharmacy.
"It offers students an opportunity to develop confidence and efficiency with the dispensing process and to practice communication, professional interactions and patient care activities in a ‘safe’ environment –where they can make mistakes and learn from them," Associate Professor Marriott said.
In their final years of study, students are also exposed to a range of commercial dispensing software programs, creating an easy transition from study to employment in community pharmacies or hospitals once they graduate.
The new learning spaces add to the faculty's teaching innovations, such as Pharmatopia. This program, launched in 2009, is an online virtual world, linked to ten pharmacy schools around the globe.
About the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
The Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences engages in world-class research and has a long history as a leading provider of undergraduate and postgraduate education. The faculty's curriculum is purpose designed for the study of pharmacy and pharmaceutical science and is taught by discipline experts. The educational profile of the faculty comprises two undergraduate programs, four postgraduate coursework and two higher degrees by research courses. Over 1800 students are enrolled in these programs.
Leading the way in education innovation, the faculty's driving force behind introducing innovative technologies is student-learning outcomes and 98% of the faculty's students complete their respective courses.