Pharmacology Games For Nursing Students

If you have a large screen you can run through these as a class together while getting students to mark down their answers on paper (to stop them looking up the answers).

7 Cool (And Free) Class Activities For Pharmacology (Make Pharma Fun!) [2021]

Finding inspiring ways to effectively teach or learn pharmacology is tough. For many, it can seem a boring subject full of epic lists and confusing molecular interactions.

But everything becomes a little easier when it’s more fun…

Which is why I’ve curated these 7 cool classroom activities for pharmacology that you can use whether you’re a student (bored in class) or a teacher stressed for ideas.

What’s even better? Each of these options is completely free to use or experiment with.

Let’s get started.

Class Activities For Pharmacology

The class activities we’ll be looking at:

• Tablet Dosages Game
• Pharmacology Jeopardy Game
• Drug Cards
• Poster/Interactive Presentations
• Skits
• Pharmacology Mnemonics
• Pharmacology Trivia

Tablet Dosages Game

Quizzes always go down well with students, no matter the subject. Gamifying pharmacology works the same way.

RegisteredNurseRN.com has two awesome 10-question quizzes that are great to run through in small groups or pairs.

If you have a large screen you can run through these as a class together while getting students to mark down their answers on paper (to stop them looking up the answers).

Run through the explainer videos first as a refresher on how to best do these calculations. They’re originally meant for the NCLEX but wouldn’t be a miss in any introductory pharma class.

Useful and requires no prep!

Pharmacology Jeopardy Game

JeopardyLabs.com has an awesome pharmacology jeopardy style game that’s perfect for classroom teaching.

It all works in-browser, you don’t have to fuss around setting anything up.

Just set up how many teams you have playing then hit continue to start the game.

If you don’t know how jeopardy works check out a quick YouTube clip for reference (it’s very simple).

Question categories include:

• Cardiovascular
• Psych
• Endocrine
• Respiratory
• GI

The questions show up according to the point allocations and you can keep track of each team’s score below.

Note: JeopardyLabs has a ton of similar games relevant to other subjects too. You can find a bunch of anatomy, physiology and even microbiology quizzes too.

Pharmacology Class Project

The following are a few ideas you can do as pharmacology class assignments or projects, with students making up small groups.

Drug Cards

Flashcards are a super powerful tool for drilling drug classifications, mechanisms and everything else. Producing a “class deck”, that you can play future games with, could be a nice idea.

This could work by:

• Get a bunch of index cards and colored pens
• Dividing the class into small groups
• Giving each group a certain drug class: i.e. anti-arrythmics
• Having each group produce a set number (20-50 etc) cards for their assigned class
• Get them to include images, symbols, mnemonics
• Then swap the finished cards with another groups and make a review

Bonus: you could even make a solitaire style game for pharmacology. Check out this idea from students at the British University in Egypt for inspiration…

Poster/Interactive Presentations

How about dividing a class into small groups and assigning them with making a poster or documentary-style presentation?

Again you can give them a subtopic or drug class and get them to produce something informative and entertaining (whilst providing time for research).

Encourage them to add illustrations etc to brighten it up (not another boring Powerpoint).

Show them Speed Pharmacology’s videos for inspiration of what’s possible…

Once complete, each group can present what they’ve made with the other students fact checking or following up with questions.

You could even start a class YouTube channel if it really takes off!

Skits

The idea is to provide students with internet access and books or journals specifically focused on a specific pharmacology topic.

You’ll need to come up with “scenarios” relevant to each topic, that explain the details of a case needing certain treatment.

Then, do as follows:

• Divide students into groups of 3
• Give each group a different scenario
• Provide adequate research time
• Ask the students to find out how the drugs in each scenario work at a cellular level
• Have each group prepare a skit to teach students about the groups of drugs relevant to each scenario – get them to discuss the pros and cons etc
• Judge the skits with a points system (that’ll add a nice competitive element)

As the teacher, you make the rules here. You might let each group enlist “volunteers” from other groups etc.

See Duke’s site above for examples of scenarios.

Pharmacology Mnemonics

Making up weird and kooky mnemonics is always fun. Pharmacology, due to its endless lists, is perfect for this.

Divide your class into sub-groups and get them to create their own mnemonics. Make it a competition by giving the group with the best mnemonics points. You can put the decision down to a class vote.

Things you can make mnemonics from in pharmacology:

• Drug toxicities
• Medication administration checklists
• Lists of side effects
• Symptomatic indications for the usage of specific drugs
• Medications relevant to certain pathologies etc.

There’s a ton of options here!

Pharmacology Trivia

Finally, trivia is another fun (and free) classroom activity you can enjoy with pharmacology students.

Similar to RegisteredNurseRN’s dose specific quizzes, you can also run through these in the same format (separating students into small teams etc).

Here are some great pharmacology quizzes full of interesting subject-related trivia:

• Fun Trivia’s Pharmacology A-Z: 25 questions that serve as a general overview of the subject
• ProProfs Quizzes: there are over 218 pharmacology quizzes here covering topics like pharmacokinetics, diabetic medications, antihistamines etc.
• Hitnots Pharmacology Quiz: A big 50 question quiz (including drugs and abbreviations) that has some challenging case-based questions

Also make sure you check out the user generated pharmacology submissions at Kahoot (there are thousands of them). These are awesome as your students can play them sitting in class while using a smartphone or tablet.

You will need to register with the site and login first however.

Are There Any Other Fun Ways To Teach Medication Administration?

Aside from the ideas above, most other “fun” ways of teaching medication administration to pharmacology students are generally paid.

Here are a couple of ideas:

Teaching Strategies For Pharmacology

There are several studes detailing effective strategies for pharmacology.

Here are a couple of them, presented next to their recommendations.

Online, simulation, and integrated methods of teaching pharmacology were most beneficial for pharmacology knowledge acquisition and student satisfaction. Traditional lecture, problem-based learning, and a flipped classroom were least effective strategies for teaching pharmacology to undergraduate students.

This article reports on an effective change from a lecture-only approach to teaching with the use of games and case studies in a baccalaureate nursing education program. Improvements have been noted in standardized test scores and student evaluations, and students are more engaged in the learning process.

The general consensus is that a student-led approach, along with a mix of interactive activities (quizzes, games, presentations etc.), is much more favorable when it comes to students doing well in pharmacology.

Summary

The science suggests the more fun pharma is, the more effective it is to teach. Hopefully these games can serve as inspiration!

If you enjoyed this post, you might find the following articles useful:

Image Source: @Ross Stone at Unsplash

Would You Give This Med? An interactive nursing pharmacology activity

Deciding when to give and hold meds is tough. This simple yes/no format activity provides the data and asks, “Would you give this med?” 💊💊

Clinical judgment around medication administration is an area where students struggle. We have all done a medication check-off where a student was not prepared. But the sheer volume of pharmacology information they have to sift through can feel insurmountable when caring for a patient at the bedside. We can allow them to practice this skill in a simple active learning activity called “Would you give this med?”

Why is this important

Students are faced with endless clinical decisions related to medication administration. Examples include:

• Deciding whether or not to give a beta-blocker when the student has just obtained an abnormal blood pressure.
• Knowing which lab value to monitor closely in an unstable patient with already grossly abnormal labs.
• Looking at a long list of PRN options and deciding which will work best based on the assessment data they gathered.

At the most basic level, we can ask students, with every single medication administration or situation, “Is this safe?” This yes/no format translates well to practice where there is no grey area around giving or not giving a medication.

How to Implement:

Create a presentation in PowerPoint or Canva. Include some basic patient information, including the reason for hospitalization and history. It is essential to include both relevant and irrelevant information. Nurses need to be able to filter large amounts of data, deciding what is important and what is “nice to know” every time they look at a patient chart.

Include only one order for only one medication. Include assessment data that will help a student nurse decide whether or not to give or hold the medication. Here is a simple example:

This is a simple one, clearly a hold. I would highlight that NSAIDs carry a high risk of nephrotoxicity and this medication should be held based on her creatinine level.

Here is another example:

You can also include scenarios with grey areas. Is his blood pressure too low for a diuretic? What about his potassium – should a loop diuretic be held when he is clearly in fluid volume excess and the potassium can be replaced? Is the dose appropriate? Ultimately have students decide what they would do and discuss how they would know if it was an effective decision.

Don’t forget to include a normal example:

With any activity, it is great to throw in a normal situation once in a while. Students can get conditioned to look for something wrong or think that instructors are trying to trick them – when actually it is a simple “yes, I would give that med.”

And the best part – these slides were created in Canva and below is the link to download the template. You can easily start building your own today! 🎇

Variations:

While great for a clinical post-conference, this activity could also be used in theory courses to reinforce medication knowledge. These types of scenarios also make strong exam questions and could be used for alternate format items such as short-answer or true/false.

Best for:

No limits on this one! This one could really work anywhere.

Start Building a Would You Give This Med? Activity

Deciding when to give and hold a medication is challenging for students. We should offer them opportunities to practice this skill in theory or clinical. Using “Would You Give this Med?” is easy to implement, using the template provided and modifying it to include clinical situations related to the content you teach.

Do a quick brainstorming of common medications you see at your clinical site that require clinical judgment. Also, think about your own practice. This experience can be a rich source for unique clinical situations. You can easily add this simple activity into a lecture and start building your active learning library immediately. Remember, it doesn’t have to be a total overhaul. You can start with one activity at a time!