Expanding voluntary active-learning opportunities for pharmacy students in a Respiratory Physiology Module.

Objectives: To expand voluntary active-learning opportunities for bachelor of pharmacy students enrolled in a third-year human physiology and pharmacology course and determine whether the additional course components improved learning outcomes.

Design: Additional voluntary active-learning opportunities including a large-class tutorial, additional formative assessment, and an online discussion were added to the Respiratory Physiology Module of the course. Examination scores were compared with those from previous years.

The efficacy of interactive lecturing for students with diverse science backgrounds.

Learning is an active process, and, as such, interactive lectures are considered as the educational best practice. This study investigated the efficacy of interactive lecturing in a module of eight respiratory physiology lectures in a second-year Physiology course with two distinct subcohorts: students with strong science backgrounds and those without. The comparison of student performance in the summative examinations of respiratory physiology allowed us to evaluate the efficacy of interactive lecturing for each subcohort.