Teaching Pharmacokinetics Using a Student-Centered, Modified Mastery-Based Approach

Evidence from clinical clerkships and pharmacy practice suggests that pharmacy students have great dif-ficulty learning to apply pharmacokinetic principles to patient care. It is hypothesized that the problem is one of contextual transfer of learning. An undergraduate pharmacokinetics course was redesigned to teach the process of contextual transfer using active learning strategies. A modified mastery grading sys-tem was adopted to encourage consistent, long-term learning. Five years of course assessment data indi-cate that the instructional and assessment methods result in an enhanced process for learning applica-tion of pharmacokinetics. Evidence from student assessments and from the practice environment sug-gests that students who complete our course do begin to overcome the barriers of contextual transfer. Descriptions of specific instructional strategies and supporting data are presented