February 9, 2015

Therapeutic Problem Solving (TPS) is a five-semester course sequence which is part of the core of the College of Pharmacy PharmD curriculum.  When the curriculum was redesigned, the faculty “flipped the classroom” for the TPS sequence and adopted Team Based Learning (TBL) as the pedagogy for the course.  The Michigan experience with TBL was recently published in an article entitled “Lessons from the Trenches:  Implementing Team-Based Learning across Several Courses” in the journal Currents in Pharmacy Teaching & Learning (co-authors included: Tami L. Remington, Kristin C. Klein, and Barry E. Bleske).  

Dr. Remington serves as Clinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy at the U-M College of Pharmacy and Clinical Pharmacist at the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS). Dr. Klein is Clinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy at the U-M College of Pharmacy and Clinical Pharmacist at the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS). Dr. Bleske is currently Associate Professor of Pharmacy at the U-M College of Pharmacy and Clinical Pharmacist at the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS). 

Dr. Remington, the lead author, stated “Health professions educators are encouraged to adopt active learning to improve readiness of graduates to work in modern health care environments. We learned a tremendous amount during our transition to a new pedagogy, and felt others could benefit by hearing about our experience”.

Dr. Bleske added that “being at the forefront of incorporating an active learning approach such as TBL into pharmacy curriculum, and being at the University of Michigan, it is important for us to lead and to lead we need to publish our insight and experience and to innovate”.  Dr. Bleske continued and mentioned a number of research studies are currently underway exploring learning outcomes and new approaches to learning within the TBL framework.  As one example, a current study underway is incorporating virtual cases studies to complement the TBL approach to learning.  If you have any questions regarding UM COP experience or approach to TBL, the faculty are very excited and open to discuss.  

Learn more: One New Curriculum, Many Heightened Experiences