The College of Pharmacy at Nova Southeastern University adopted interactive compressed video teleconferencing as the distance learning format for its entry-level doctor of pharmacy program. Students at the main campus in Ft. Lauderdale see the professor in person, while students in West Palm Beach and Ponce, Puerto Rico see the professor on a projection or television screen. The large class size and the quantity of technology used during lectures appear to affect the participation levels of students across all sites. The students also exhibit a widespread range in the mastery of chemical concepts needed to understand the actions of drugs at the molecular level. In this context we sought to enhance the learning experience of the students by designing and implementing a Web-based interactive module relevant to the topic that they chose as the most difficult for them.
Figure 1. Screen capture of the lecture section of the online acid–base module.
Pre-pharmacy, pre-medicine, entry-level pharmacy students, as well as students in other health professions, would benefit from the “Acid–Base Properties of Drugs” online module by allowing them to explore, on their own time, how the concepts they have learned in general and organic chemistry relate to the actions and reactions of drugs in the body (Figure 1). The basic sections of the module are
- Lecture Material
- Key Concepts
- Online Exercises (with solutions)
- Learner’s Resources
- Self-Check
The Lecture Material section includes the following subheadings:
- Introduction to Acids, Bases and Salts
- Hydrolysis of Salts
- Conjugate Acids and Conjugate Bases
- Strength of Acids and Bases
- Inductive Effects
- Resonance Effects
- The Henderson–Hasselbach Equation
The Online Exercise section includes ten problems displayed throughout the module as the concepts are discussed. The Self-Check section is a randomly generated structure that requires the student to evaluate the effect of neighboring functional groups on the ionization and urinary excretion of the drug.
Evaluation of the “Acid–Base Properties of Drugs” online module by first-year students at the College of Pharmacy indicates that it is a valuable learning resource. It is expected to be valuable to other health professions students and those returning to academia in a health related field after several years of full time employment. Educators in need of computer resources for life science applications of chemical concepts should find the online module an easy-to-use study aid.
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