Students Create TikTok Informercial for AR Exam Glasses

Alessia Reeves, Dylan LeBoeuf, and Taylor Hurst, all PharmD candidates from the University of Louisiana Monroe, were assigned a non-traditional project to create a concept or invention that could benefit the world of pharmacy. They were instructed to present their idea in a minute-long TikTok video format. The student group developed a concept called "exam AR [augmented reality] glasses" that would use virtual reality and artificial intelligence technology to provide an interactive, hands-on learning experience for pharmacy students. The goal was to make studying and exam preparation more engaging and effective. Overall, the students enjoyed the creative project and were excited about the potential of using emerging technologies like VR and AI to improve pharmacy education and training.

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Q: In class, there was an assignment for creating a TikTok infomerical. What was the process for this instruction?

Alessia Reeves: So we were instructed to create a concept or an invention that may benefit or improve the world of pharmacy. We were to create a Tiktok video that was a minimum of a minute, no more than 5, and we were basically just instructed to explain what it does and how it helps pharmacy.

Dylan LeBoeuf: Non-traditional learning question assignment for us to take on, and so we were instructed to come up with, a concept or an intervention, or not intervention, but something to benefit pharmacy, something that, in a way, us as students could take, and it would benefit kind of like the overall learning process, and so it was a minute-long, TikTok of us just kind of like explaining our idea in an infomercial like format, and so really, I think it was like a really cool project to take on, and we were able to use things that we use on the daily, like Tiktok and those types of things, like those platforms, and make an assignment out of it.

Taylor Hurst: We actually got to pick our groups, and once we picked our groups, we got the instructions, and we had to create a minute-long TikTok about something that we thought would benefit the pharmacy world, or something that that's innovative and new that could possibly progress pharmacy in the future, for students, for health care, just anyone, in general, what's something that we could invent that would be really cool. And that's what our assignment was, and it was a lot of fun to do. I think our classmates were very hesitant at first, and I think the results were fun. We got to rewatch the videos in class after everybody went and made their Tiktok. So it was funny, and a lot of people had really good ideas. So we really enjoyed it as a whole.

Q: Can you explain the project that you created, and why your group chose to use this concept?

Alessia Reeves: So our project was to come up with something called exam AR glasses, and we basically just thought what would make students lives easier, and kind of, as I said earlier, it does get draining and hard to focus on just lots of words on little slide. So we came up with the idea of something that can put you in a real life, hands on situation that you would experience when you're at work, and we chose a lot of our inspiration from VR and AI technology, which I think pharmacy is going to lean on a lot in the future, and we also wanted to add in like VR life practice exams before you take the real thing.

Dylan LeBoeuf: Our group did exam AR glasses and so to kind of give a little bit of background, so we all kind of started in our main classroom. Our class has 80 something kids in it, and then in out of those 80, out of our entire class, we broke off into like groups of 8 to 9 students. We kind of went around the school in different locations, and we were given an hour, an hour and 30 minutes, to come up with and produce this Tiktok, minute long Tiktok video. Our group went to our interactive lab, and we were kind of sitting there for a second brainstorming what would help benefit us as students. What could we really sell? And so that's when somebody, it was Taylor, I think, pulled off her glasses, and she said, "Wait, what if we use these, what if we use these glasses as kind of like an AR to really, like, learn and enhance the learning process?" Because at the time, we all were having our patient counseling and our IV bag mixing in all of those skills and lab and so that's how we came up with the exam AR glasses, and so they would be interactive glasses that you could wear, and it would use VR and AI technology to really just kind of put you in that atmosphere. So it would be different from like an APPE, which we're on now, and it would be lower stakes, right? Because an app is you met, you can make a mistake in APPEs. And it would be a higher mistake versus making a mistake on an AR exam, using the glasses, and it would be a lower, lower stake. And it's also a non traditional way of testing knowledge and retention. So that's kind of where the idea came from.

Taylor Hurst: The group members that I had were some of my close classmates that I am typically in study groups with, and we all discussed how we like to see things instead of just like reading them. And, moving on, we like to actually see the processes. We like to watch videos, and we like to talk things out and be very interactive with things. So we were thinking, "how could we prepare better for exams by using something interactive besides us just sitting in a circle and talking to each other?" So we came up the idea of exam AR glasses. And so this was using virtual reality and like AI to kind of put together a concept of us practicing our clinical situations because most of us do want to be, in my study group, want to be clinical pharmacists. There are a lot of situations that we are in that we get questions asked on the spot or, like during code blues, we have a patient who is coding, and we need to make a decision quickly. So it's situations that kind of gave us the idea to do this. So we wanted to be able to practice the information for our exams, but in a clinical situation. So you basically put the glasses on and and it'll like virtual reality put you in the situation, and there will be someone, an instructor, asking you questions, and so you can practice what you learned, and another thing that we thought it would be good for is patient counseling. So we practice a lot of patient counseling during school, but we sometimes don't get enough practice with it. Then we do have these checkpoints during school called OSCEs, and so these are like a pass or fail. They're it's very important to pass these or you'll get held back a year. And instead of practicing to your roommate or your parents or your boyfriend, you could actually just put on these glasses and practice your patient counseling prior to your OSCE with someone that you don't know. Because I think of we could all agree, it's easier to practice with something that someone that you don't know than it is when you're standing in front of your sibling and they're just going to laugh at you. So that was our concept behind the whole thing.