Dr Alessio Iannetti, Teaching Fellow in the School of Pharmacy was recently awarded ULTSEC Innovation Funding.  Here he explains the work that funding is supporting.

At the School of Pharmacy we are currently undertaking the exercise of mapping our integrated curriculum at the level of learning outcomes, using the Matchware Mindview software provided by NUIT. Academics are working with the Degree Programme Director, Dr Hamde Nazar, within their discipline groups (Pharmacology, Chemistry, Pharmacy Practice and Pharmaceutics), to create master concept maps of the Stages.

In Stages 2-4 of the programme, the teaching is orientated around the body systems, e.g. gastro-intestinal, cardiovascular, etc. These provide conceptual hooks to integrate the knowledge from the different disciplines. This process is clarifying how and what we teach, identifying discrepancies and gaps but also opportunities for collaboration of academics towards coherent teaching.

Dr Hamde Nazar and I have proposed to engage students in this process of curriculum review. We are recruiting students to undertake a similar process by developing a concept map for the last academic year they have progressed from.

Students will develop concept maps around the same identified systems covered in that Stage, independently. This will provide the academic team the student perspective of the teaching and learning experience, similarly identifying gaps, discrepancies but also areas of successful integration and knowledge development.

We will compare the maps created by students and staff to find points of congruence and incongruence. The comparison will identify aspects that will need to be reinforced, changed or cancelled, leading to the optimisation and improvement of programme content and incorporating the student perspective in it.

In summary, we aim to develop a student-staff relationship towards improving the student learning experience.

In this pilot project, we are recruiting three Stage 3 students to review and map the three systems of Stage 2 (Gastro-intestinal, respiratory and cardiovascular). If this pilot project is successful, we will plan to apply for further funds to extend the mapping to the whole curriculum and to establish a strategy to make sure that this practice is built into the programme review.

This project could potentially provide a model for other schools and subject areas.

Dr Alessio Iannetti, Teaching Fellow at the School of Pharmacy