We spoke with an award-winning teacher from the Faculty of Pharmacy Lenka Smejkalová about creating a safe learning environment, innovating course content, and the importance of connecting teaching and exams with real-world practice.
In your nomination materials for the Vice-Rector’s Award for Quality Teaching, you mentioned that you see your role as that of a guide. What do you mean by that?
I believe that teaching today is about more than just passing on knowledge and facts. I try to explain to students how to learn something, how to practice it, and also why it’s important to learn it and what impact it will have in practice. That’s how I see the role of a guide – I guide students through the subject matter.
“I want students to understand the significance of their profession, to be proud of it, and to be able to develop it further in the future.”
Lenka Smejkalová
You believe that teaching is not just about knowledge transfer, but also about developing competencies, attitudes, and understanding. Based on your graduates’ profiles, which competencies, attitudes, and understandings do you aim to develop in them?
Our students are going be pharmacists and cosmetologists. The former are healthcare professionals, and the latter will also work closely with health in their future careers. So they need not only professional knowledge but also empathy for patients and clients. I want students to understand the significance of their profession, to be proud of it, and to be able to develop it further in the future.
Can you briefly introduce the courses you teach?
In the Pharmacy program, I teach Introduction to Pharmacy Practice and the follow-up course Pharmacy Practice. Even though not all our graduates work in pharmacies, they should all understand how things work at the final point where the medicine reaches the patient. Those working in industry or regulatory authorities should also know how their work affects pharmacy practice and, most importantly, patients.
These courses are followed by Pharmacy Law and Ethics. We want students to first understand how things work in practice and then look at how they are legally grounded and which regulations apply. They should know that things don’t happen in practice just because we say so – they are anchored somewhere. It’s similar in the Cosmetology program.
How do you incorporate practical experience into your teaching?
Whenever possible, I try to connect topics with real-life examples from my own practice or the experiences of colleagues – both positive and negative. Besides professional examples, I also use stories from my own studies and life. My family loves me because I like to use all their mistakes in pharmacotherapy as teaching material (laughs). I want students to know that mistakes happen, and it’s good for them to happen in an academic setting. I need them to be able to admit when they’ve made a mistake and ask for help in correcting it. That way, I can be sure they won’t repeat those mistakes in practice and endanger anyone.
Does the emphasis on practical application also influence how you assess students’ work?
We try to modify the assessment system every year so that it doesn’t lead to mechanical memorization. We don’t want students to just memorize questions passed down from year to year, recite them, and get a grade. I was and keep seeing students who know the answers but can’t go deeper. I worry they wouldn’t be able to interpret theoretical knowledge in real-life situations. Now we try to formulate questions in a way that requires students to apply the material. Theory remains, of course, but only to the extent needed to anchor the topic. Suddenly, different students succeed – those who think more deeply, even if they can’t recall a definition word-for-word. I think students also realize why they’re learning something, what they need to know, and how they’ll use it in practice.
I’d like to eliminate what I call “flow-through knowledge”: things students learn just for the exam and forget two weeks later. Then, when a related subject comes up, they have to relearn everything. I’d rather they firmly grasp the basics, which they can build on anytime. I try to ensure that easily searchable and time-sensitive information – like legal code numbers – doesn’t form the core of the exam. For such information, I just want students to know how to find and interpret it.
Can you describe how you specifically aim to shift from memorization to practical and applicable skills?
One example is pharmacy administration, specifically the need to create a compounding protocol. When I was a student, we had to list everything the protocol had to include. Today, students must create the protocol themselves based on partial information they find on their own. Or they receive three versions of the document and must choose the one that meets all the requirements. Alternatively, they have to correct a document, which involves identifying formulations that aren’t precise enough for the protocol to be usable in practice.
You were the principal investigator of a project funded through a grant supporting the innovation of key courses. Did it influence your teaching? How?
Being involved in the project was very motivating for me. Suddenly, there was a call that supported exactly what I would have done anyway. The grant provided us with funding, methodology, and support. It helped me organize my thoughts: what I’m doing, by when I want to do it, and most importantly, how I will reflect on and measure it. One can teach intuitively but often doesn’t think as much about the final stages – reflection, self-reflection, and feedback. It’s important to systematize this somehow: you may feel and see things, but you don’t always know how to put them together in a way that helps further improve the course the following year.
I was also encouraged by connecting with others and seeing what’s happening at other faculties. I realized I’m not “different” for wanting to innovate teaching. I also discovered how much more can be done. When I saw others’ work, I often thought: “I’d love to see this in practice” or “I want to consider whether this could work for us.” I think that’s actually the core idea of the project. In the end, we found that the motivation – like being able to buy teaching aids – was actually the least important part. The project brought many other unexpected benefits.
“I’d like teaching to be something where I can imagine being on the other side – as a student – and enjoying it.”
Lenka Smejkalová
Could you identify a key element of successful teaching? What do you need to feel good in your teaching, and what do you think makes it successful?
After many years, I’ve realized that to feel good in teaching, I need to be myself. At first, I tried to conform to models, trends, or various expectations placed on teachers. I ended up playing a role. But I found that it only works when I’m truly myself in the classroom – authentic, with all my flaws and imperfections. I also discovered that students can accept that, as long as they know it’s not an act.
For teaching to be successful, I believe it’s essential to create a safe environment – one of mutual trust and respect. I see this shift already happening in primary schools, where different approaches are starting to treat children as partners in the learning process, who take responsibility for their own learning. I’d like to build on that. I think it’s important to create an environment where teaching doesn’t build a wall between students and teachers. I don’t want students to approach learning as something they just need to survive to earn credits. I want them to know that teachers are here to give them the opportunity to learn something. I also want students to feel they can come to us with questions beyond the course content. Sometimes I learn things I maybe didn’t need to know, but we simply can’t separate school from private life. So perhaps the most important thing in the end is a human approach.
I’d also like teaching to be something where I can imagine being on the other side – as a student – and enjoying it. I’m not sure I’d want to go through the kind of frontal teaching we experienced, even though it was delivered by excellent experts and outstanding lecturers.
Is there anything new you’re planning for your teaching next semester?
As part of the innovation project, there will definitely be updates in the Pharmacy Practice course, but I can’t share specifics yet. We have a million ideas, but we need to sort out what’s realistic and what we’ll have to postpone until next year. We don’t want to turn everything upside down all at once. We’ll see what works and how willing students are to engage in creative activities.
When we first introduced group tasks a few years ago, students were a bit hesitant because it was something new. At the time, they saw teaching as sitting, taking notes, and being afraid someone might ask them a question. That’s gradually changing, and students are becoming more actively involved and bringing more of themselves into the learning process. Now, when they get a task with a time limit, they don’t try to rush through it like before – they often ask for more time because they’re really engaged.
This autumn, we’re planning to update and make three or four seminars more application-oriented. In addition to incorporating smaller “interactive” tasks, I also want to try having students summarize the material themselves. I’ll ask them to identify and write down the key points they want to remember. I’ll then compile these summaries from all groups into the study materials. If the notes are written in their own words, it might actually be better than if I wrote them myself. I see this as the biggest challenge I want to try – so we’ll see how it goes.
Interviewer: Karolína Zlámalová, Quality Office RMU (zlamalova@rect.muni.cz)
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