An innovative pharmacology curriculum for medical students: promoting higher order cognition, learner-centered coaching, and constructive feedback through a social pedagogy framework

BACKGROUND: Ongoing developments in medical education recognize the move to curricula that support self-regulated learning processes, skills of thinking, and the ability to adapt and navigate uncertain situations as much as the knowledge base of learners. Difficulties encountered in pursuing this reform, especially for pharmacology, include the tendency of beginner learners not to ask higher-order questions and the potential incongruency between creating authentic spaces for self-directed learning and providing external expert guidance. We tested the feasibility of developing, implementing, and sustaining an innovative model of social pedagogy as a strategy to address these challenges. METHODS: Constructivism, communities of practice, and networked learning theory were selected as lenses for development of the model. Three hundred sixty-five first-year medical students participated between 2014 and 2018; they were introduced to pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics via 15 online modules that each included: learning objectives, a clinical vignette, teaching video, cumulative concept map, and small group wiki assignment. Five-person communities organized around the 15 wiki assignments were a key component where learners answered asynchronous, case-based questions that touched iteratively on Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy levels. The social pedagogy model’s wiki assignments were explored using abductive qualitative data analysis. RESULTS: Qualitative analysis revealed that learners acquired and applied a conceptual framework for approaching pharmacology as a discipline, and demonstrated adaptive mastery by evaluating and interacting competently with unfamiliar drug information. Learners and faculty acquired habits of self-directed assessment seeking and learner-centered coaching, respectively; specifically, the model taught learners to look outward to peers, faculty, and external sources of information for credible and constructive feedback, and that this feedback could be trusted as a basis to direct performance improvement. 82–94% of learners rated the social pedagogy-based curriculum valuable. CONCLUSIONS: This social pedagogy model is agnostic with regard to pharmacology and type of health professional learner; therefore, we anticipate its benefits to be transferable to other disciplines. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-021-02516-y.