To be a professor during the pandemic has been challenging. Adapting content to online learning spaces demands time, dedication, and creative exploration of new ways to keep online learners engaged. This year’s recipient of the Excellence in Pharmacy Teaching Award demonstrates this commitment to learners.
This year’s recipient is Professor Brett Barrett, a clinical lecturer who joined Waterloo Pharmacy in 2011. Barrett coordinates courses in the Integrated Patient Focused Care series and teaches courses in institutional pharmacy practice, infectious disease, interprofessional case management and advanced therapeutics in a hospital setting.
“Professor Barrett’s dedication to her students, her willingness to adopt new educational technologies and her commitment to her own growth as an educator make her an outstanding recipient of this award,” says Andrea Edginton, Hallman Director.
Students repeatedly noted both the high-quality of Barrett’s teaching and the effectiveness of her educational techniques. She also supports curricular development, providing feedback to committees that examine electives and the PharmD program. Barrett’s insights as an interprofessional practitioner and a hospital pharmacist have helped the School integrate the pharmacists’ patient-care process more fluidly across the core curriculum.
In the scholarship of teaching, Barrett leads a Dean’s Undergraduate Teaching Initiative project on ‘Integrating and Evaluating Active Learning in Clinical Skills-Based Courses’. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, she also made time to act as advisor to a primary care resident and 401 students in 2020 and educated herself on best practices in teaching and learning. As part of these efforts, she completed the Centre for Teaching Excellence’s ReCoDE program to ensure her 2020 courses were appropriate for online delivery.
As her students will testify, Barrett is always exploring strategies for engaging students in the classroom. She was an early and consistent adopter of TopHat, incorporates Kahoot quizzes regularly, and began using video assignments for assessment when classes transitioned online due.
Barrett also makes professional contributions to the education of healthcare professionals. She was the lead author Waterloo Pharmacy’s Antimicrobial Stewardship in Primary Care Continuing Education Program.
Congratulations, Prof. Barrett!