PANDEMIC ACCELERATES DIGITAL PHARMACY EDUCATION

in their first year at USC—to meaningfully engage with their classmates for the first time in months.

“The escape room was such a great activity that allowed us to not only further our understanding of important class concepts but also interact with our peers in a fun, challenging and educational way,” says Albert Fernandez, a freshman majoring in pharmacology and drug development. “As a first-year student, this was especially helpful in giving me the opportunity to meet fellow Trojans in such distant times.”

Natalie Emirzyan, a sophomore majoring in pharmacology and drug development, echoes this sentiment: “It made me excited about the material I learned, and I really enjoyed getting to know my classmates when we were split up into small teams.”

Gamification, or the application of typical elements of game playing—like point scoring and competition with others—to other disciplines has become increasingly popular in education.

With in-person courses, turning a themed escape room into an educational activity would be logistically overwhelming, thanks to the physical constraints of class size and facilities. These hurdles don’t exist in the virtual realm.

“It’s nice for educational design because once you build your first one, it’s easy to spin it into different subject areas and different rooms,” Burkhardt notes.

Capitalizing on the current remote-learning experience, Phan and Burkhardt are venturing further into gamification and have recently started to incorporate the wildly popular online multiplayer game Among Us into their curriculum.

“As hard as this time is, there are still ways to teach in interesting, innovative ways,” Burkhardt says. “The pandemic has challenged us to be more creative educators. We’re learning things, too.”

PANDEMIC ACCELERATES DIGITAL PHARMACY EDUCATION

Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs Kari L. Franson (left) and Assistant Dean of Curriculum Edith Mirzaian

When the COVID-19 pandemic derailed in-person learning, the USC School of Pharmacy immediately moved all classes online to ensure that students could safely continue training without missing a beat. Assistant Dean of Curriculum Edith Mirzaian and Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs Kari L. Franson outlined the school’s efforts to digitize courses in a concept paper for the international journal Pharmacy. Their examination of the school’s successes and challenges offers a model for peer institutions.

While the school had long offered remote learning, Mirzaian and Franson compare the emergency expansion to “cramming for an exam. It was a process that required tireless work in a short period of time, with faculty and staff making personal sacrifices almost around the clock, shifting to remote learning to achieve a short-term goal.”

To seize upon the pandemic’s “accelerant for change” in achieving lasting transformations, Mirzaian and Franson note the need for “strategic decisions to adopt a new way of life, be disciplined and focused in our practice, be open to learn from each iteration, and finally be able to thrive in the future we create.”