Questions have long been used as a teaching tool by teachers and preceptors to assess students' knowledge, promote comprehension, and stimulate critical thinking. Well-crafted questions lead to new insights, generate discussion, and promote the comprehensive exploration of subject matter. Poorly constructed questions can stifle learning by creating confusion, intimidating students, and limiting creative thinking. Teachers most often ask lower-order, convergent questions that rely on students' factual recall of prior knowledge rather than asking higher-order, divergent questions that promote deep thinking, requiring students to analyze and evaluate concepts. This review summarizes the taxonomy of questions, provides strategies for formulating effective questions, and explores practical considerations to enhance student engagement and promote critical thinking. These concepts can be applied in the classroom and in experiential learning environments.Keywords: questioning, critical thinking, pedagogy, effective teaching, teaching tool INTRODUCTIONUsing questions to teach is an age-old practice and has been a cornerstone of education for centuries. 1,2 Questions are often used to stimulate the recall of prior knowledge, promote comprehension, and build critical-thinking skills. Teachers ask questions to help students uncover what has been learned, to comprehensively explore the subject matter, and to generate discussion and peerto-peer interaction. Student-initiated questions increase higher-order learning by requiring them to analyze information, connect seemingly disparate concepts, and articulate their thoughts. 3 Indeed, questions are ubiquitous, but are the right kinds of questions -ones that promote learning, not recall -asked at the appropriate time? 4 Poor questions can stifle learning by creating confusion, intimidating students, and limiting creative thinking. 5 Effective questions asked in a psychologically safe learning environment support student learning by probing for understanding, encouraging creativity, stimulating critical thinking, and enhancing confidence. 6 The art of asking the right questions at the appropriate time is not innate. 7 Bloom's taxonomy of learning categorizes cognitive levels into several domains. 8 Questions that elicit responses in the knowledge, comprehension, and application domains are frequently considered lower-order questions, while questions in the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation domains are considered higherorder questions. 9 Higher-order questions elicit deeper and critical thinking; therefore, teachers are encouraged to ask questions in these domains (Table 1). 2,[10][11][12] This does not mean that lower-order questions should not be asked. It is appropriate to ask questions to address all cognitive domains as long as the desired learning outcome is kept in mind and a good mix of questions is used during each teaching session. 2 Given that the learning objectives in most courses in graduate and professional degree programs are often intended to stimulate high ord...

No abstract

This paper reviews the literature, analyzes current and future practice, develops a list of competencies necessary for future pharmacists, and provides recommendations to pharmacy's academic enterprise regarding curricula of the future. Curricula of the future will center around 3 functional roles for pharmacists: patient-centered care, population-based care, and systems management; and must also foster the development of 5 cross-cutting abilities in student pharmacists: professionalism, self-directed learning, leadership and advocacy, interprofessional collaboration, and cultural competency. Future curricula must be developed in an evidence-based manner, focus less on information storage and retrieval, engage student pharmacists in a variety of highly interactive learning experiences, and expand experiential learning opportunities throughout all years.

The OAK test is a brief, valid, and reliable knowledge assessment instrument that may be a useful tool for research and clinical practice to augment patient education programs.

No abstract

A business-practice model is a guide, or toolkit, to assist managers and clinical pharmacy practitioners in the exploration, proposal, development and implementation of new clinical pharmacy services and/or the enhancement of existing services. This document was developed by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Task Force on Ambulatory Practice to assist clinical pharmacy practitioners and administrators in the development of businesspractice models for new and existing clinical pharmacy services in ambulatory settings. This document provides detailed instructions, examples, and resources on conducting a market assessment and a needs assessment, types of clinical services, operations, legal and regulatory issues, marketing and promotion, service development and exit plan, evaluation of service outcomes, and financial considerations in the development of a clinical pharmacy service in the ambulatory environment. Available literature is summarized, and an appendix provides valuable citations and resources. As ambulatory care practices continue to evolve, there will be increased knowledge of how to initiate and expand the services. This document is intended to serve as an essential resource to assist in the growth and development of clinical pharmacy services in the ambulatory environment.

No abstract

Health care is experiencing increasing pressure to implement evidence-based interventions that improve quality, control costs, and maximize value. Unfortunately, many clinical services and interventions to optimize medication use do not consistently produce the intended humanistic, clinical, and economic outcomes. The lack of conclusive results is believed to stem from the widely recognized research-to-practice gap. The field of implementation science seeks to discover and apply strategies designed to accelerate successful integration of interventions into routine practice. This primer provides an overview of implementation science principles for pharmacists and other health care providers interested in accelerating practice transformation to improve health care delivery and, ultimately, patient care.