The document describes a curriculum mapping activity developed for first year pharmacy students to help them understand the relevance and relationships between topics in the degree program. In the activity, students work in groups to build a four year curriculum map by placing subject cards onto a poster in response to questions about safely dispensing a sample prescription. Survey results found the activity significantly improved students' understanding of the need for foundation topics and logic of the curriculum sequencing. The activity was deemed a success and will be continued annually.

1. Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
A Curriculum Mapping Exercise for
1st Year Pharmacy Students
David Manallack

2. The Usual Complaints
 “We’ll never use this stuff”
 “Why do we have to study all this chemistry”
 “I can’t see the point of all this”
It was time to do something about the moaning

3. Why we developed this activity
 First year students struggle to understand the need for
enabling sciences in the curriculum and lack early
identification as a pharmacy professional.
 The curriculum mapping activity endeavoured to develop
students’ understanding of the relevance of the enabling
science subjects to the B. Pharm. course and also of the
curricula as a whole to their impending career as
pharmacists.

4. An overview of how the session is run
 Students are promoted to being
pharmacists
 A prescription arrives for Ari Contos
(morphine 60 mg tablets)
 Students are asked to pose questions (in
order to safely dispense the prescription)
 Armed with these questions and an
indication of the mapping task, students
build a curriculum
Ari Contos
46 Holmes St
Pharmville 3052
19 9 XX
MS Contin 60 mg tabs
1 bd x 28 (twenty-eight)
0 R (no repeats)
Dr Usaim Yusuf Gaber
18 Thanet St
Pharmville 3052
Phone: 78635343
Presciber No. OP94007
x

5. In other words
 In order to safely dispense the prescription, what would the
students need to know and understand, and what
professional skills would be required.
 The curriculum must be oriented to addressing the
questions students raise.

6. Example questions
 Are you familiar with Ari Contos?
 What is wrong with Ari?
 What is MS Contin?
 How does MS Contin work? [addictive?]
 What legal requirements are there?
 How is it formulated? [why twice daily?]
 What do I tell Ari about his medicine?
 How do we help Ari beyond this prescription?
 Pharmacy Practice
 Integrated Therapeutics
 Chemistry
 Pharmacology
 Pharmacy Practice
 Drug Delivery
 Pharmacy Practice
 Pharmacy Practice

7. The Mapping ‘Game’
 Students are given a poster with 4 year levels and 36 velcro
tabs (9/year)
 A list of potential career options sits at the top
 They also have a bag of 36 subject cards (e.g.
biochemistry, psychology, counselling, drug development,
and so forth)
 In teams of 5 or 6 students they build a curriculum
considering:
– The sequence of topics
– The relationships between topics
– (missing topics)

8. An example
Social skills –
learning greetings
Colouring –
fine motor skills
Alphabet Numbers
Basic
punctuation
1-syllable
words
Subtracting
2-syllable
words
Climbing –
gross motor skills
Counting
Counting
backwards
Adding
Running
errands
Vowels &
consonants
Skills Progression at Primary School
Shape
identification

9. One possible map
Academic
(education/
research)
Drug
information
pharmacist
Drug
industry
Pharmacy
manage-
ment
Community
pharmacist
Hospital
pharmacist
Postgraduate
study (e.g.
PhD)
Regulatory
bodies (e.g.
government)
Military
Integrated
therapeutics:
neurology and
psychiatry
Integrated
therapeutics:
oncology
Integrated
therapeutics:
dermatology
& pain
Integrated
therapeutics:
gastrointesti-
nal disease
Integrated
therapeutics
: respiratory
disorders
Drug
development
Professional
experience
placement
Public health Inter-
professional
relationships
Pharmacology Integrated
therapeutics:
endocrinology
& Renal
Integrated
therapeutics:
infectious
disease
Integrated
therapeutics:
cardio-
vascular
Drug
disposition
& pharma-
cokinetics
Drug
metabolism
Ethics Dispensing Counselling
Medicinal
chemistry
Microbiology Immunology Molecular
biology
Drug
delivery
Drug
formulation
Pharma-
ceutical
calculations
Legal Communi-
cation
Organic
chemistry
Cell biology Physiology Biochemistry Physical
chemistry
Maths Statistics &
epidemiology
Health &
society
Psychology

10. A Comparison to Our Curriculum
 As unit names are unable to give a good description of the
subject matter, we developed the subject cards
 In many cases we provide a sentence on the card as a
glossary term for the subject.
 The course runs as four streams
– Enabling sciences
– Pharmacy Practice
– Integrated Therapeutics
– Drug Delivery

11. Semester
2, Year 4
Integrated
Therapeutics- Advanced
Practice
Integrated
Therapeutics-
Psychiatry
Integrated Therapeutics-
Neurology and Oncology
Contexts for practice III
Semester 1,
Year 4
Drug Delivery and
Development
Integrated
Therapeutics-
Endocrinology and
Renal disease
Integrated
Therapeutics-
Dermatology and pain
Professional Experience
Placement program
Semester 2,
Year 3
Drug Delivery II Integrated
Therapeutics-
Infectious Diseases
Electives Contexts for practice II
Semester 1,
Year 3
Drug Delivery,
Disposition and
Dynamics
Microbiology and
immunology
Integrated Therapeutics-
Respiratory and
Gastrointestinal
Contexts for practice I
Semester 2,
Year 2
Drug Delivery and
Disposition
Basis of Drug action II Integrated Therapeutics-
Introduction and
Cardiovascular
Pharmacy in a public
Health context
Semester 1,
Year 2
Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology
Basis of Drug Action I Cell function,
communication and
pathology
Pharmacists as
Communicators
Semester 2,
Year 1
Drug Delivery 1 Systems Physiology Bio-organic and Medicinal
Chemistry II
Pharmacy, Health and
Society II
Semester 1,
Year 1
Physicochemical basis of
pharmacy
Introduction to
physiology
Bio-organic and Medicinal
Chemistry I
Pharmacy, Health and
Society I
The curriculum
DRUG DELIVERY
ENABLING SCIENCES
PHARMACY PRACTICE
INTEGRATED THERAPEUTICS

12. The Survey
 Demographic information
1. Male | Female (please circle one)
2. I am a Domestic / International student (please circle one)
3. For each statement, circle the option that best represents your
situation:
(circle one)
a. I studied VCE (or equivalent) last year: yes | no
a. I have studied at university before: yes | no
a. I have had paid work in a pharmacy: yes | no
a. I am studying pharmacy because I want to work as a
pharmacist:
yes | no

13. Survey opinions

14. Survey opinions

15. Written opinions/comments
 15. What were the best aspects of the curriculum mapping activity?
 16. How could the curriculum mapping activity be improved to help you
better understand the course as a whole?
 17. Please provide any other comments you have about the curriculum
mapping activity.

16. Key Results
 The statement, ‘Prior to this activity I had a good
understanding of the relationship and need for the topics in
this course’, was used as an initial benchmark with which to
compare post-activity statements: 46% of students
agreed, 37% remained neutral and 17% disagreed.

17. Post activity questions
 The following statements, all designed to show whether the activity
increased curriculum understanding, brought interesting results:
 ‘The activity helped me better understand the need to study foundation
topics for each area.’
 ‘The activity helped me better understand the logic in the sequence of
the BPharm topics.’
 ‘The activity helped me better understand the need for the breadth of
BPharm topics.’
 ‘I can now make better sense of the BPharm curriculum as a whole.’
 ‘The activity helped me understand the relationship between the
different subject areas and my future career.’

18. Results
 80% of students agreed they had better understanding of curriculum–
subject needs because of the activity.
 Given that 46% had perceived good understanding initially, this was
seen as significant.
 Of note, 77% of students agreed with the fifth statement that mapped
the activity to better understanding of subject relevance and future
career.
 These results have been interpreted that the activity gave students
substantial insight into the need for subjects, including the enabling
science subjects, and the importance of these subjects to a
pharmacists’ professional work.

19. Results
 67% of students agreed this activity should be used each year.
International students valued the activity more than domestic students.
 Other findings showed that students who don’t work in pharmacies
valued the activity more than those who have part-time work.
 Students with prior university education held stronger views about the
need for the activity to be held. Seventy per cent of such students saw
the need for the activity in first year, while 17% perceived it as
unnecessary. However, only 63% of university-naïve students identified
a need for the activity, while 10% of them believed it was unnecessary.

20. Summary
 Overall, the exercise was deemed a significant success
from a student and staff perspective, and we have now run
our second session
 A debrief meeting was held with facilitators to discuss
improvements for future delivery. We have also moved the
activity to first semester, as was suggested by a number of
students.

21. Acknowledgements
 Based on an original idea
by Laurence Orlando –
Monash University
 Jenny McDowell,
Kim Styles
 We are happy to share
materials with any group
(e.g. Engineering)