The American Academy of Colleges of Pharmacy honors Margolis’ service and outstanding contribution to pharmacy education 

By Katie Ginder-Vogel

“Active learning and strong student relationships are the backbone of my teaching philosophy,” says Amanda Margolis (PharmD ‘09, MS ‘17), associate professor in the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy’s Pharmacy Practice and Translational Research Division.

In her approach to active and memorable learning, Margolis is as much a stickler for evidence as she is for evaluation, and that combination has earned her a distinction that only four other pharmacy faculty received in 2024: the Emerging Teaching Scholar Award from the American Academy of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP).

The award is designed to recognize the excellence of early career academic pharmacy faculty who strive to offer excellent teaching through evidence-based techniques, evaluate those techniques, and contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning by publishing their findings.

“This recognition encourages me to keep up what I’ve been doing and is reinvigorating my scholarship.”
—Amanda Margolis

Margolis was recognized for her contributions in three areas: her teaching of evidence-based medicine, enhancing experiential education, and sharing her work through publications that advance the field.

“This recognition encourages me to keep up what I’ve been doing and is reinvigorating my scholarship,” she says.

Commitment to evidence-based teaching

“I’m a big proponent of blended learning, and I study it, make sure it works, study that, and publish those findings,” says Margolis. “The paper I published in the American Journal of Pharmacy Education on the best practices in blended learning has been cited 90 times.” 

Similarly, Margolis’ publication on preceptor development caught the attention of the Accreditation Council of Pharmacy Education (ACPE). The publication covered the sequence of initial implementation, how well pharmacist preceptors used the program, the impact on the clinic, and ideas about how to encourage more preceptors to participate. As a result, the ACPE’s assistant director of Continuing Pharmacy Education and Continuing Professional Development submitted a letter of support for Margolis’ earning the Emerging Teaching Scholar Award.

Margolis, as an Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) course coordinator, aims to continually refine the School’s experiential programs, including assessments. For example, she began implementing the Individual Teamwork Observation and Feedback Tool (iTOFT) in 2018, to help preceptors for PharmD students on APPEs consistently observe and rate students’ interprofessional teamwork skills. Her first assessment of the tool earned a 2021 New Investigator Award from the AACP, where she evaluated preceptor use of iTOFT to improve ease of use while maintaining a meaningful student assessment.

“We conducted interviews and focus groups to minimize and streamline the assessment and make it less cumbersome for preceptors, while maintaining its intent,” says Margolis. “That little change hopefully did what we wanted it to do, and we are following up on those changes this summer. A lot of thought and intention went into that.”

Lately, Margolis has dedicated her attention to achieving a goal outlined in the School’s Strategic Plan to have all PharmD students complete a clinical rotation working with medically underserved patients. 

“It took a lot of work to survey sites, answer questions, and design the initiative,” says Margolis. “Now we’re going back and analyzing whether students are learning what we intend for them to learn on the Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences, which serve medically underserved patients.” 

Reinvigorating a commitment to scholarship

Margolis will receive the Emerging Teaching Scholar award at the July 2024 AACP meeting, at which she will also be installed as AACP Drug Information and Library Science (DILS) secretary of knowledge management. The AACP DILS section is composed of librarians and faculty who teach drug information and teaching evidence-based medicine. 

“We share ideas, curricula, and suggestions to support our students, and it’s very specific to what our students need and are going through,” explains Margolis. “We all get excited about teaching statistics, how to search the library system, and reading articles.” 

“I wouldn’t be here without my colleagues in the Pharmacy Practice and Translational Research Division and our strong culture of assessment.”
—Amanda Margolis

Margolis feels gratified to have her whole body of work validated by the recognition and says the designation will provide her with the opportunity to become more involved in AACP at the national level. 

“I applied for it at the encouragement of Beth Martin, who has been a long-term career mentor to me,” says Margolis, who also credits the culture in the School’s Pharmacy Practice and Translational Research Division for her commitment to rigorous assessment. “I wouldn’t be here without my colleagues in the Pharmacy Practice and Translational Research Division and our strong culture of assessment.”