Assessing online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: Reflections from pharmacy communication classes

Abstract

Many universities, including the author’s pharmacy school in Japan, were not prepared to make the automatic change to online learning during the “stay at home” advisories and quarantines of the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing flaws in the educational system and provoking social and academic disruptions in the learning process. Instructors provided students with online lectures based on the textbooks and assumed that students would study independently to complete the courses. The result of this teacher-based online lecture style was that many students grew unmotivated and neglected their studies, leading to gaps in their learning and an imbalance in the educational process. In the pharmacy school’s first and fourth-year communication classes, the author gave weekly online assignments and mini-tests through various platforms and apps and responded to each of them with scores and individual comments to promote communication and information exchange. The students emailed the teacher about their questions and concerns and gave feedback through online surveys about the classes. Almost all fourth-year students and about half of the first-year students completed the written and spoken tasks and passed their courses. The employed formative and summative assessment strategies maintained a teaching/learning balance in the educational process and improved student participation to complete and pass the classes despite the changes in learning style.