Pharmacy Students Discuss Non-Traditional Learning in the Classroom

Alessia Reeves, Dylan LeBoeuf, and Taylor Hurst, all PharmD candidates from the University of Louisiana Monroe, discuss the challenges and benefits of non-traditional learning in pharmacy school. They also explain their hope for the future of pharmacy school, such as utilizing more non-traditional learning to further enhance studies.

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Q: Where there any obstacles, and how did you overcome them for the class?

Alessia Reeves: For this class, in this project, specifically, we did not experience any obstacles, just because I am more well versed in the Tiktok app and the editing features, but we were worried about the WiFi aspect, if that were to give us any issues since our entire class was trying to upload at the same time. But luckily, we did not experience that.

Dylan LeBoeuf: I don't think that we encountered a lot of like, big obstacles. I will say, I think kind of like a systemic one for our school was the WiFi struggled a little bit. Everyone's trying to upload TikTok videos and record content, so I think our WiFi struggled a little bit school wide, but other than that, I don't think there were any huge obstacles that we had, that we encountered. I think that our group, especially, is really, it was a lot of high personalities. So we were able to really just kind of throw this idea together and really just see it, see it come to life.

Taylor Hurst: I would say, like a big obstacle for me is that I am not very well with using Tiktok at all. I don't think I could make and post a video if I wanted to. My editing skills are not very good, and I just I'm not very familiar with it, but one of my group mates, she is very good with Tiktok, so she kind of helped us overcome that obstacle, and she was well versed in her usage of TikTok, and she was the one that edited the video, clipped it all together, and posted it for us.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add from this experience?

Alessia Reeves: I really just kind of want to leave off and say that I truly do believe social media is a great tool and can enhance learning a lot. I encourage pharmacy schools to incorporate this more into the classroom. It not only is it fun and engaging, but it helps encourage students and get excited about what they're learning again.

Dylan LeBoeuf: I'll add, this was an experience in a lower state class, and I really think that, like I said, there's things in pharmacy that you just don't learn off of a lecture, and those are still vital to the patient care experience, and so I think it's projects like this, it's this non-traditional learning projects and assignments and way that really brings out and highlights those key features that you need to ensure that patient care isn't jeopardized and it's really those things that you need to learn in school, and not during your fourth year, and not while you're already a pharmacist, and so I believe that social media platforms can really enhance the learning process and I think it's kind of like the change of times, and so that's why I think this is such an awesome experience, and I would love to see it kind of expand and see the way that other schools really interpret it as well.

Taylor Hurst: I would just say don't be hesitant about it because just kind of take a leap of faith and go down a rabbit hole and see what you can find and explore that side of learning. It's not always about sitting in a classroom and listening to lectures. If you can come up with a way that works better for you or for your classmates, then I would definitely try to explore it.