Implementing service-learning in the pharmacy curriculum

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, Fall 2000 by Barner, Jamie C

Faculty supported the inclusion of S-L in the curriculum as a required component, but like most schools, the College struggles to balance the pressures of an ever-expanding curriculum. To balance these pressures, S-L is not offered as a separate course, but as a component of a larger course. Satisfactory completion of the S-L component contributes 35 percent to the total course grade. Regarding the time required for coordinating the course, the S-L component utilizes one faculty member and one teaching assistant. The faculty member is responsible for assuring that all assignments are turned in on time, and for approving the students' agency selection and individual goals and objectives for the experience. The faculty member also reviews and provides constructive grammatical and composition comments on the students' reaction logs. Although the faculty member reviews the final S-L paper, a teaching assistant is responsible for grading the assignments. The UT Volunteer Center is a valuable resource in that the connections between community agencies and students have already been established. Thus, faculty time is not spent administering programs at various sites or developing student activities.

Although pharmacy schools/colleges have incorporated S-- L in a variety of formats, most(4,6,10-13,15) have selected environments that focused on second to fourth year pharmacy students performing specific pharmacy related activities. Offering a "general" community S-L experience can be beneficial to first-year pharmacy students, as well as faculty. Because first-year pharmacy students have limited drug and disease state knowledge, a general community service approach can provide increased exposure to social services and their role in supporting society. In addition, because most agencies have "standard" volunteer activities, the "general" approach may reduce faculty time and effort spent on organizing activities for the students.

REFLECTIONS ON THE S-L EXPERIENCE

Reciprocal Relationships

As stated in the introduction, the reciprocal relationship of S-L is one that benefits both the servers and the served. Table I shows how the two components of service and learning were beneficial to all parties involved. Although they were not surveyed directly, information from students' assignments was used to assess both the service and learning of the agency clientele. The agency clientele were the means by which students learned. The clients' willingness to share experiences and insights provided the students with unique learning opportunities that cannot be captured in a textbook or classroom.

Community service agencies were extremely willing to partner with pharmacy students. Survey evaluations (Table 11) showed that students performed very well, overall, by exhibiting high levels of communication and quality assertiveness skills. The evaluations also showed that pharmacy students worked well with the clients, other volunteers as well as agency staff. Additional written comments and personal communications with the agencies supported the value that pharmacy students provided to the agencies. The course coordinator received many phone calls requesting that pharmacy students continue to be involved with the agency.