{"id":2084,"date":"2008-10-20T14:00:15","date_gmt":"2008-10-20T18:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=2084"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:43:10","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:43:10","slug":"pharmacy-professor-holds-students-to-high-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2008\/10\/pharmacy-professor-holds-students-to-high-expectations\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharmacy Professor Holds Students to High Expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Professor<\/a>
Professor Robin Bogner, left, Teaching Fellow, speaks with Anisa Naka, a fifth-year pharmacy student. Photo by Jessica Tommaselli.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Robin Bogner wasn\u2019t planning a career in academics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I\u2019d climb the corporate ladder in the pharmaceutics industry,\u201d says Bogner, an associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences.<\/p>\n

As an undergraduate, she had worked for four summers at Johnson & Johnson, and her heart was set on becoming an industrial leader. Once she got to graduate school at the University of Iowa, however, something happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey made me a teaching assistant,\u201d she says, \u201cand I was derailed. A student in a lab was struggling with a question and I explained to him how to answer it. When he said, \u2018Oh, I see,\u2019 I was hooked. There was no better feeling in the world. I went into pharmacy to help people, and I realized I could do that by teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bogner, who joined the UConn faculty in 1989, was named a 2008 University of Connecticut Teaching Fellow. She has taught many courses, including solution and solid dosage forms of drugs, compounding, and special topics in clinical rotations.<\/p>\n

Each student brings his or her own talent, motivation, and experience to the classroom, says Bogner, who was also named 2007 School of Pharmacy Teacher of the Year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a challenge, particularly in classes with 100 students, because you only have one voice to talk to them all. You can\u2019t engage students with a one-way conversation and expect learning to occur, so I use different strategies to effect learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

She does that by explaining each concept students need to learn in different ways. That includes discussion, schematics or graphs, and mathematics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt works better,\u201d she says. Sometimes she illustrates points by using items from her \u201cbag of tricks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bogner pulls out a large bag of three-inch, clear plastic horse capsules. \u201cIt would be hard to explain to students how large this really is,\u201d she says. \u201cSo I show them instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

During one class, students test placebo tablets to experience how they dissolve in the mouth. \u201cAs pharmacists, the students are going to have to dispense these newer dosage forms and they need to experience how fast the tablets actually dissolve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bogner says during long lectures in large classes to keep students engaged, she periodically asks them questions. She has each student\u2019s name on 3\u201d x 5\u201d cards. At the start of the class she shuffles the cards and asks a student to cut the deck.<\/p>\n

The person whose name is on the top of the deck must answer the question, and may consult with the students around him or her. \u201cIt becomes a team effort and keeps the students awake and challenged,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Bogner says it\u2019s important for her to \u201chold students to the highest expectations possible without causing undue stress. I believe real learning takes a bit of a struggle on the part of the student, and ends with great satisfaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauren Aleksunes, a former student, says Bogner\u2019s lecture style was \u201cparticularly effective in conveying pertinent information and assisting students in digesting the large amount of material in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says Bogner\u2019s commitment to her current and former students is \u201coutstanding and inspiring\u201d to young scientists who plan to enter academic research as a career: \u201cShe is always available for consultation and advice regardless of all of her responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alison Smith, another former student, describes Bogner as \u201cpassionate\u201d and \u201centhusiastic\u201d with the highest expectations of her students: \u201cShe\u2019s the type of person who makes you want to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former student Michael Lettmoden says, \u201cProfessor Bogner is a consummate teaching professional. Her teaching style sets her far apart from instructors or trainers; she strives to teach her students not what to think, but how to develop their own thinking style.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does Bogner enjoy about teaching? It keeps her learning, which in turn, makes her a better teacher, she says: \u201cEvery time I teach something, I get a better understanding of it. That\u2019s important, because I owe my students the best explanation I can offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says she hopes that when her students complete her courses, they are able to access what they\u2019ve learned when working in the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve taught them what they need to know \u2013 they have the information, but I want them to be motivated to go back in their brains and access that knowledge when they need it and figure out how it addresses a particular problem,\u201d says Bogner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to be willing to use the knowledge, take a risk, and try to find a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robin Bogner wasn\u2019t planning a career in academics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I\u2019d climb the corporate ladder in the pharmaceutics industry,\u201d says Bogner, an associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences.<\/p>\n

As an undergraduate, she had worked for four summers at Johnson & Johnson, and her heart was set on becoming an industrial leader. Once she got to graduate school at the University of Iowa, however, something happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[59],"class_list":["post-2084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-19 22:24:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2084"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37624,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions\/37624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}