Kyle C.

Starkus, PharmD

Teaching Philosophy

My passion for teaching lay undiscovered until a preceptor, now mentor, expressed interest in
me as a learner. It was through this preceptor’s encouragement and genuine devotion to
education that I not only had a valuable rotation experience, but came to appreciate my passion
for education. I attribute my ambition to pursue and obtain a PGY1 residency as well as a
temporary adjunct faculty position at a college of pharmacy to this single preceptor. The change
in career aspirations from retail pharmacy to completing a PGY1 residency and pursuing a
clinical pharmacist and part time college of pharmacy faculty has been a dramatic divergence
from my initial goals before this experience with the preceptor. As proof in my own life, it is my
belief that an effective, passionate and enthusiastic educator can have a profound impact far
beyond the traditional sense of teaching.

I believe an educator’s primary responsibility is to help a learner achieve their goals. With this
mindset, I believe an educator plays a significant role in the development of a learner, more than
simply teaching subject material or how to perform a task. I am also of the belief that it is pivotal
to create a positive and productive learning environment. Ensuring learners feel comfortable to
participate in active learning without fear of providing a wrong answer is well demonstrated in
literature as an effective approach to optimize learning1. Lastly, I believe in the value of tailoring
the experience to the student to fit their learning style. All learners are different, and open dialog
as to their preferences and the flexibility of an educator to accommodate these preferences
greatly enhances the learning experience for both parties2.

As I continue to embark on my journey as an educator, I anticipate the need to employ a

multitude of different teaching strategies to fulfill my beliefs as I identify what methods yield the
best results for the individual learner and fit my own personalized teaching style. I will apply the
mindset of being a lifelong learner to my career as an educator and always seek growth. I intend
to utilize literature and learner feedback to guide my approach. For example, active learning is a
key component to my idea of effective teaching and has been demonstrated through a meta
analysis of over 200 studies to be more effective than traditional lecturing when feasible2,6.

I have attempted to utilize a few teaching methods in my limited teaching and precepting
experience. To work towards providing an active learning environment, I have taught subject
material while precepting through both a fictional patient case and by following a real patient at
the hospital. For key take away points, I have posed drug information questions to the student
while playing the role of a provider. There are two thoughts behind this particular strategy, one to
simulate a real world scenario to help with material retention and the other to divert the focus
from a preceptor quizzing a learner4. I hope to continue developing my portfolio of teaching
methods and hone their effectiveness through feedback from the learners and mentors as
demonstrated in literature on preceptor development5.
 Kyle C. Starkus, PharmD

Evaluation is perhaps one of the most important aspects of teaching from an educators
perspective. Evaluations are a tool not only for the learner to gauge their growth, but for the
educator to assess how effectively they prepared and delivered the material being assessed. It
is a skill to develop evaluations as an educator that are fair, unbiased, and an accurate
reflection of the learner's development. I intend to develop this skill by seeking post-evaluation
feedback from learners to open a dialogue over how they perceived the evaluation.

Providing effective and unbiased feedback is one of the most difficult aspects of being an
educator, as learners are remarkably diverse in preference for how feedback is delivered. I
recognize I will likely not be able to provide optimal feedback as I begin my career, but intend to
approach this practice with an eagerness to improve and listen to the learner. I plan to
implement strategies detailed by ASHP, including setting clear expectations at the start of any
learning experience, utilizing standardized methods to evaluate performance that can be
understood by the learner, and providing feedback in a timely manner to facilitate
improvement3,6.

The foundation to my career as an educator will be to continually seek growth. I hope to parallel
the learner as I strive to always improve myself and never become set in one way. Through the
mindset of being a lifelong learner and my perspective on the remarkable impact an educator
can have, I hope to achieve my vision of helping learners reach their goals.
 Kyle C. Starkus, PharmD

Works Cited

1) Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L. S., Miller, K., Callaghan, K., & Kestin, G. (2019). Measuring
actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the
classroom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(39), 19251–19257.
2) Freeman, Scott, et al. “Active Learning Increases Student Performance in Science,
Engineering, and Mathematics.” PNAS, National Academy of Sciences, 10 June 2014,
https://www.pnas.org/content/111/23/8410.
3) NPF Providing Constructive Feedback to a Preceptor - Ashp.
https://www.ashp.org/-/media/assets/new-practitioner/docs/npf-providing-constructive-fee
dback-to-a-preceptor.ashx?la=en&hash=505ED3F3CDB2A0F59C3F50EC79D4680
4F8AB361C.
4) Wilbur, K., Wilby, K. J., & Pawluk, S. (2018). Pharmacy Preceptor Judgments of Student
Performance and Behavior During Experiential Training. American journal of
pharmaceutical education, 82(10), 6451. https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe6451
5) Wilkinson, S. T., Couldry, R., Phillips, H., & Buck, B. (2013). Preceptor development:
providing effective feedback. Hospital pharmacy, 48(1), 26–32.
https://doi.org/10.1310/hpj4801-26.test
6) Yue, Juan-Juan, and Gang Chen. “Competence of Pharmacy Mentors: A Survey of the
Perceptions of Pharmacy Postgraduates and Their Mentors - BMC Medical Education.”
BioMed Central, BioMed Central, 12 Aug. 2020,
https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-020-02188-0.