March 19, 2019, by Editor
Demonstrating from the comfort of home
This blog was written by Funmi Agbesanwa (3rd year PhD), her supervisors are Dr Matthew Boyd (School of Pharmacy) and Dr Simon Bishop (Nottingham University Business School).
Demonstrating from afar
Demonstrating in pharmacy practice
Being a qualified pharmacist, I regularly demonstrate (this is a form of teaching) to pharmacy undergraduate students in their dispensing classes. Apart from providing additional income, it is also great being involved in the students’ learning.
Last year I took up an opportunity from one of the teacher practitioners, Tristan Gildroy, to demonstrate to second year pharmacy students in Malaysia. Tristan said, “The first two years of the Nottingham MPharm programme runs concurrently at our School in Malaysia, and although students have identical timetabled opportunities to practise their communication skills, students from the Malaysia cohort may face greater aural communication challenges when arriving in the UK due to lack of familiarity with regional accents or commonly used expressions. This opportunity enables those students to be better equipped for classes/practice in the UK with native English speakers and also allow students to practice their telephone communication skills.”
What did it involve?
The demonstrating involved going through a role-play scenario with the Malaysian pharmacy students over the phone. In the role-play, I was a head teacher requesting for some prescription items to keep in my primary school and the Malaysian pharmacy students played the pharmacist. The students called the UK demonstrators using Skype, and I had to log-in by 5.30am (1:30pm Malaysia time), accepting calls from different students every 15 minutes until around 09:00 am GMT.
Tristan had set up a Skype group for the UK demonstrators which meant that we could easily contact each other if we had any issues or connection problems.
Cup of coffee
Skype access
5:30 am Early start
In summary
Set-up at the pharmacy school, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC)
It was a great experience and brought back lovely memories from my study abroad experience in Malaysia during my undergraduate second year of pharmacy. Although the early waking was tricky, it was a good way to connect with some of the Malaysian students and hopefully the experience will make them more comfortable should they finish their degree here at Nottingham!
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