An Evidence Basis for Assessing Excellence in Pharmacy Teaching

Preparing pharmacists who provide a high standard of patient-centered care and maintain current knowledge and practice skills throughout a long and productive career is a goal of Schools of Pharmacy. An important avenue to achieving this goal is teaching excellence. Quality teaching is greatly enhanced when the institution establishes standards for teaching excellence and develops valid and reliable methods to assess and evaluate it. To assist the academy in defining excellence criteria for teaching, this paper explores the concept of teaching excellence and the commonly accepted elements that comprise it. Appropriate methods to evaluate teaching include a combination of student, peer, and self-assessment. Accepted practices in each of these areas of assessment of teaching are described. Elevating the teaching enterprise in our Schools and Colleges by systematic, rigorous assessment of teaching for the purpose of improvement should ultimately result in better prepared pharmacists

Rewarding Excellence in Pharmacy Teaching

Schools and Colleges of Pharmacy need uniform, valid, and reliable methods to select and formally recognize teaching excellence. This manuscript describes important considerations in establishing a quality teaching recognition program. Factors to consider include the number and mix of awards, criteria, and process of choosing award winners, and the impact of awards on the School or College teaching program. Institutions should critically examine the processes by which they determine teaching awards in light of the recommendations of the 2009 AACP Task Force on Recognition and Reward of Teaching Excellence. The impact of teaching award programs may include demonstration of an institution\u27s commitment to teaching excellence, increased faculty satisfaction and retention, and motivation of faculty members to improve their teaching skills through faculty development programs

Demonstrating Excellence in Pharmacy Teaching Through Scholarship

Evaluating faculty\u27s contribution to the research component of the tripartite mission is based on quantified data, such as number of peer-reviewed articles, impact factors, and the number and amount of grants. In contrast, although effective teachers possess universally agreed-upon qualities, evaluating faculty\u27s teaching excellence can be difficult because of varying criteria. Using objective research criteria and peer review, the ability of faculty to demonstrate teaching excellence may be elevated by the pursuit of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). The continuum of effective teaching, scholarly teaching, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and educational research can demonstrate how this elevation can be possible. Suggested methods for faculty development and institutional change are explored