Yolanda

0:00  Hello?

Alejandra

0:00  Hello?

Yolanda

0:01  How?

Alejandra

0:01  How are you today? Good. How are you? Good? Just setting up there we go. Can you hear me now?

Yolanda

0:08  Yes, yes, I can hear you. Perfect.

Alejandra

0:12  Perfect. Awesome. I was trying to set it up because it does the noise cancellation and it sounds weird like my voice sounds weird, but how are you looking forward to the recording? I am, I’m really excited about it. That’s awesome. I’m excited about it too. Thank you for sending the updated bio. So no problem. I put that in place. Let me see. Just a question I have is making sure that I’m pronouncing the school correctly because it’s Lloyd L Gregory.

Yolanda

0:49  Yes.

Alejandra

0:50  Okay. Just wanted to make sure because you never know, sometimes things are pronounced differently. I was like make sure. Do you have any questions for me?

Yolanda

1:00  No, no questions. I went through all the questions you sent me and kind of put some notes for what to. So I’m really looking forward to.

Alejandra

1:11  Awesome. Perfect. So, okay. So we’ll start, I’m just setting up my phone here. Don’t worry about time you’ll see the pace. So I’ll start the intro and then introduce you and then welcome you. And I have right there, it’s like welcome and thank you for joining us today. And that way like then we start. And the first question is most like, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got interested in Pharmacy education and assessment? And then we go from there. Okay. You’ll notice when I’m closing the thing because then I’ll say something like thank you so much or Hardy for joining us today and sharing your experience. And then I am gonna have something where it says before we say good bye. Do you have any final thoughts or advice, anything you want to tell the listeners? And then we close the session.

Yolanda

2:08  Okay. Sounds good.

Alejandra

2:10  Perfect. Let me just take a look. Perfect. I’m looking.

Alejandra

2:22  Perfect. So we’re gonna start recording in one two three. Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today… and you’re listening to the luminaries podcast where we talk with education leaders to find out how they’re thinking and working creatively to drive students success. And today’s episode from spreadsheets to insights, revolutionizing assessment with analytics. We explore the ways in which analytics are transforming assessment and higher education, and how institutions can leverage data to drive inform decision making and improve students success. Today. We’re excited to have Yolanda Hardy as our guest speaker. Doctor Hardy is the Associate Dean of academic affairs, assessment and a creation and Associate professor at palm beach at ATI university, Lloyd Gregory school of Pharmacy. Prior to her current role, she served as sure Pharmacy practice as Chicago state university college of Pharmacy. She also served on faculty at northeastern university school of Pharmacy where she managed clinical Pharmacy services. We have focused on providing and voluntary care service and diverse and underserved communities. Hardy holds a bachelors of science and Pharmacy degree from the university of Toledo. She earned a doctors of Pharmacy degree at the Ohio state university. Following this, she completed a Pharmacy practice residency in community care with the Ohio state university school of Pharmacy, and the Columbus neighborhoods. Health centers. In recently, or Hardy completed a learning analytics graduate certificate program with the university of North Dakota. We are honored to have or Hardy with us today to share her experience on the topic, welcome door, Hardy, and thank you so much for joining us today to talk about from spreadsheets to insights.

Yolanda

4:20  Thank you. This is an honor. So, thank you for the invitation to come speak with you to.

Call Setup ends

Alejandra

4:24  The, the honor is all ours. You know, Hardy. I wanna ask you to start the conversation around from spreadsheets to analytics and how analytics is revolutionizing assessment. Can you tell us a little bit more about your story, your background, and how you got interested in Pharmacy education and assessment.

Yolanda

4:44  Yeah. So it’s really interesting. I have always been interested in education since I was a little girl and my dad bought me a chalk board and I played school with my stuff animals. So I always knew that education was gonna be a part of my journey and with Pharmacy just curious about, you know, how medications work. So I was happy to be able to merge the two together and go into Pharmacy education. When it comes to assessment. I kinda fell into assessment. Actually while I was at Chicago state, a colleague of mine and I, we created this really unique taste base course that was loosely based off of grey’s anatomy and the chooser own adventure books if you remember those from childhood. And so we decided after we create the course that we wanted to measure how students performed on the learning objectives of the course. And then also how did the students perceive that the course would prepare them for appy rotations? And so we decided to survey the students after completing the course as well as survey them again after finishing their last IP PE, which was we had it held like a week before app started. And so we were surprised with the outcomes. They are very favorable. And then our Dean went on to assess students in terms of how do they perform in this course? And then how did they fire on the NAPLEX? And so talking to the Dean at that time, she’s like, you know, this is assessment, right? And I had no idea. So for me that just kinda started me down this path where I really started to get excited about how can we use this data to improve not only student education and student learning? How can we help our students become better? But then also how could we use this data to improve our programs? And so since then, it’s just been, you know, I’ve turned into an assessment nerd.

Alejandra

7:05  That’s a fascinating story. So, as you started doing assessment just because you want Drake trying to figure out like are we are preparing the students, right? And you were collecting data about how the students were performing in the course. And then the Dean took it to the next level by saying, let’s do a pretty much a correlation analysis of how they perform in the course and how they’re gonna, how they perform on the board exam? What were some of the key insights that you found there when you did that relationship between your course and the boarding Sam?

Yolanda

7:40  Well, certainly the students who performed well in the course, they were performing well, passing the NAPLEX the first time and this was at a time when we were able to get student names, you know, from a table to do anymore. And so again, those students not only passed it up the first time but they passed it very well. We also saw that those students who felt like they felt confident in the skills. So when we looked at how they rated themselves on the course objectives, the confidence that they had also translated into how they performed on apps and how they performed on the exam. So it was very positive to see that especially since it was a course that I mean, we made it up at panera, you know? So like.

Alejandra

8:31  It was just like let’s see.

Yolanda

8:32  What happens, you know? And it was, you know, just so like innovative at the time, did you?

Alejandra

8:39  That?

Yolanda

8:41  We also were like, we need to collect information to prove that, you know.

Alejandra

8:46  We should continue to in this.

Yolanda

8:49  So, it was nice to see that outcome. And it was very nice to see how we could take this and really look at student performance almost laungitudinally and really see what the impact of that course was on student out.

Alejandra

9:03  Comes and it’s a wonderful way to learn about assessment learning as you’re doing it, right? And now, what happened after that, after you learned, you said you became a, an assessment. So what does that mean? Right? Like what was the next thing… after that exercise?

Yolanda

9:23  Well, I started looking for data everywhere. And so even while at that school, we were working on our Accreditation reports for acpe. And I was the person that’s like where’s the data, we have data that can actually support what we just said. Let’s go find it. Let’s put it together. This data is telling us something here’s a gap that maybe we need to address. So, I just started looking everywhere for, you know, how can we use data to support what we’re doing? How can we use data to say, hey, we’re doing a really good job here. But look there’s something here that we can do better. And so just, yeah, it just kept on like it just.

Alejandra

10:14  It’s a never ending process, right? Once you find some insights, you become like hungry for insights?

Yolanda

10:23  Yes.

Alejandra

10:24  Hungry for?

Yolanda

10:25  Insights and just, you know, in that, it takes you down a path where, you know, you’re now reaching out to people, you know, and getting input from people, you’re looking at how things were designed, you know. So it’s like you take this piece of insight that you’re getting from the data and then you’re like, okay, let me look at the whole picture. The data is giving me a clue. But now I can look at the whole picture to fill in everything else. And, you know, we wouldn’t have been able to do that if we didn’t have the data. If we didn’t look at the data and analyze it.

Alejandra

11:06  And that’s I see that happening a lot. It happened to me as well when I was working at the Pharmacy school. At first, you do one activity, you…

Yolanda

11:17  Show…

Alejandra

11:17  The, the data on spreadsheets, the insights and people are like, it’s that a moment, wow, this is really informative. And then what ends up happening is that people stop making really quick decisions based on intuition?

Yolanda

11:35  They…

Alejandra

11:36  They’ll pass it’s almost like a really quick pause and just say, wait, do we have data? Now? They’re asking, right? Like do we have data for this? Is making a quick decision, right?

Yolanda

11:48  Right.

Alejandra

11:50  What were some, you mentioned a creation, which a creation, what we see that happens a lot. And I have talked with a lot of different disciplines and how they’re doing a gradation, is that they, it becomes a treasure hunting game. Yes, because you’re looking for that data and trying to figure out how do we prove to the creditors that we’re doing a job, it’s the evidence. It’s not that the people are not doing their job. They’re collecting massive amount of data.

Yolanda

12:19  But…

Alejandra

12:19  How do you transform that to a story that you can tell the creditors? What are some of the challenges you have an encounter while trying to ensure that your program is meeting or exceeding the standards for ATI, you’re correct?

Yolanda

12:36  Pharmacy schools, pretty much any institution, we have a ton of data, you know. And the thing is that it’s usually not stored in the same location. A lot of times we don’t know what all the data is and where it is. And so that lends to the treasure hunting. And usually you’re doing it in a panic.

Alejandra

12:57  You know?

Yolanda

12:58  As you’re trying to.

Alejandra

12:58  Are…

Yolanda

12:59  Report. And so, I’ve definitely encountered that as well. And so I think one of the things that I’ve really made kind of as my mission is to make sure that we have an effective and streamlined way to collect the data. But then we also have a repository. So, like this is where everything is, you know, and I find it that’s important. So, you know, someone can come to me and say, hey, do you have data on our class that entered that’s gonna graduated in 2025 sure. What do you need to know? You know, well, I wanna know, you know, where did they come from? Like what states are they coming from or I need to know what their primary languages? Okay, let me pull that up, you know, whereas before it’s kind of like, hey, who has this information? Where is it? And how can I find it? It’s I think definitely as people are preparing for a creditation, you know, the more that you can do to prevent the treasure hunt and the panic that comes to that, the better.

Alejandra

14:10  Yeah, the preventing the treasure hunt, in the panic, I, it’s a lot better because it reduces the time you need to be spending on the process. Most schools start the self study 18 months ahead of time. Ideally, it would be great to still start 18 months ahead of time, but start reviewing what you have accomplished instead of spending most of the time on a treasure hunt.

Yolanda

14:37  Exactly, exactly, you know, and it’s I was just, I’m speaking to my Dean and a few other of my colleagues about that. And just like, you know, whereas when we had to go through our self study before part of that time was spent looking for the data, you know, and it’s like we have it, you know, we have it now, we have it in dashboards already. We have it cleaned already. So all it is just running it, you know, and now we have it and that’s gonna save us a lot of time then what, you know, what was experienced before, you know, so now you can take that time to really look at the data and say this is what the data is telling us, you know, this is, you know, we’re meeting our targets here because of what the data is telling us. We’re meeting our target here, but, you know, we’ve been meeting the target for the past three years, maybe we need to up it a little bit and increase our target so that we can strive a little bit higher, you know, and those types of conversations are very hard to have when you’re spending so much time searching for the data. And so, I think that’s been a, it’s just having it in one location, streamlining it and making it accessible. Just we’ll make things a lot easier and save a lot of people headaches.

Alejandra

16:03  So, you’ve a lot of headaches in time as well, right? Because then every time someone has a question, doesn’t mean that you’re crunching numbers in excel?

Yolanda

16:12  Exactly.

Alejandra

16:13  You have everything in one place and probably what you’re doing is running queries like filtering the data in.

Yolanda

16:19  Right.

Alejandra

16:20  And that’s the goal of having everything in a centralized location.

Yolanda

16:25  So that…

Alejandra

16:26  Way you’re spending time identifying patterns and trends that can help you identify areas that need attention.

Yolanda

16:32  Yes.

Alejandra

16:33  We about a couple of weeks I’m in with someone that tell me, my God, I’m spending like more than 80 percent of my time.

Yolanda

16:41  Just…

Alejandra

16:42  Crunching numbers in excel. And then by the time that I’m done like I’m so tired, my mind is exhausted to even start looking for patterns or try.

Yolanda

16:53  Right… exactly. And I, yes.

Alejandra

16:58  I can sympathize we.

Yolanda

17:01  Is, you know, there, that was a lot of the time, you know, when I first started like, okay, let me crunch all of this in excel. And then it’s like there are multiple excel spreadsheets, you know, can I merge these all together? You know, and being able to share with faculty? You know, can you do me a favor when you send grades? Can you make sure every single document has this one column? Because I found a program where if one column is in common, I can merge everything which saved a ton of time, you know? So now I can really, okay, let me take my time and really look at this. And like you said, see the pattern, see the trend versus trying to clean all the data up and match it with the right student. And, you know, worry about, am I cutting and pasting it incorrectly? It’s just like it, you know, those types of things really… it can take you away from the essence of what you can do with data. So.

Alejandra

18:09  Absolutely. And how are you like utilizing the recent certificate that you got the graduate certificate on learning analytics? How are you utilizing that in analytics to revolutionize the processes that you have in place?

Yolanda

18:25  Yes. So, it’s I loved taking that.

Alejandra

18:28  That program.

Yolanda

18:30  So, I mean, I’ve done so many things incorporating dashboards, you know, interactive dashboards because I learned that, you know, providing faculty just with a whole bunch of numbers, you know, it’s like, okay, you know, I’m checked out but providing in a way that you can interact with, you know, so it’s like, okay here’s, our here’s what our students look like, you know, click here and you can see how that’s changed over the years. Click here. You can see how our GP as are here’s, our progress. And so that gets the conversation started more. So I learned how to do create those dashboards in this program, learning about re, responsibility, you know, so a lot of times we’re talking about assessment. We’re talking about data. You know, we’re seeing that data is helping us make decisions, but are we making them responsibly and that’s a big thing. And of course, we talked about how we could use learning analytics to, you know, help identify students that are struggling. But at the same time, if you’re consistently giving that student a form that says you’re not performing in this area and it’s highlighted in red, you know, like thinking about what is that doing for the student in terms of their own self confidence, their mental health? And is that the best way to do it? And so thinking about how we wanna use this data responsibly to assist students and not necessarily use the data when we think we’re having good intentions, but it’s actually harming the student. So we learned a lot about that and just learning about how to use the data to tell the story and how they use the data… to add on, you know, and for example, you know, yes, we can use this data to say a student with this gpa has this, you know, possibility of passing an apple on time which is informative. But if we’re using data to say, based off of your gpa and your performance in high school, we, you can’t take this major. So we’re just gonna steer you away from that major we wanna think about. Is that a responsible way to use the data? So yeah, a lot of those things are what we learned in the learning analytics program, even thinking about looking at performance based on how we write questions, you know. So do we have a student who, you know, if we look at blooms taxonomy, they’re getting all of the lower level of blooms taxonomy questions correct? But when it comes to the analysis and synthesizing that’s what they’re not getting correct. So how then are we? Gonna, how will we present a way of helping that student? It’s gonna be different than if a student is not doing well on wrote memorization, but the analyzing and synthesizing the information. So the way that we’re helping that student is gonna be different. And so we learned about those things we learned about using, you know, using our classroom management systems like Canvas or Blackboard using it more than just a great book repository, you know, because we can pull data from there, you know, the more students log in, the more likely they’re going to perform well in our course. So how can we use that to our advantage to ensure that our students are performing well in our courses and are there certain things that we can integrate into our courses? So again help students perform well. So yeah, we, I mean, it was amazing. So I could probably do a whole other pod cast.

Alejandra

22:32  It’s really interesting because I really like the concept of using the data responsibly because, you know, one of the, you wanna motivate students?

Yolanda

22:43  Yes.

Alejandra

22:44  So as you’re sharing their story, the story that the data is telling us about them and their performance and areas of opportunity. Do you share that with them on a one on one basis? Or do you provide a report to them and they interpret on their own? What can you tell us a little bit more about that interaction with the student?

Yolanda

23:06  Yes. So we use our, we use an, all of our exams are electronic. And so with our platform, they, there are those strengths and opportunities report that course coordinators can send out… to the students. When a student comes to me, I pull that out. But then I also go through it like this is what this means, you know. So if I’m reading, this is showing me that you’re doing very well on memorizati on when it comes to the questions with application, this is where you’re struggling. So let’s talk about that, you know, and being able to show them that I just did a simulation NAPLEX exam with our P4 students yesterday. And so I’m meeting with them next week and say, like, okay, you know, here’s your performance. These are the areas that you did well on. These are the areas that, you know, what I want you to look at. Is this what you expected? Do you think you wanted to do better? Now? What’s your plan? You know? So what do you need to do so that you can improve better in those areas? And so really having that conversation with them? Just to say like, okay, yes, this is how you did. But this is giving you information that you could use to improve yourself on. And so I don’t want them to look at it and say, this is a reflection of who I am like and why I’m in Pharmacy school, I can’t do it and being able to help our faculty also have that same type of conversation is one of the goals that I have for this upcoming year actually because I also feel like we can use data to help students take more kind of play a bigger role in their learning. You know, they can advocate for themselves more if they look at this data sheet and say, okay, these are the areas I’m doing well on. These are the areas that I want to improve on. Let me think about what I need to do so that I can improve in those areas.

Alejandra

25:20  More accountability and also an opportunity for the students to own their own journey.

Yolanda

25:25  Yeah. In.

Alejandra

25:26  The program?

Yolanda

25:27  Exact.

Alejandra

25:27  Like, cause I was gonna ask you… how do you make sure faculty follow the same model that they’re using data responsibility and telling the students a good story and not just saying here’s a report card with everything on red. How do you get that faculty by in, and also how does students, how do you track students? Because the assessment never ends, assessment is ongoing. So once you provided that feedback, yes, how do you, is there should there be a mechanism to track the students and to see if they’re making progress?

Yolanda

26:08  Yes. And so, in terms of the first question, in terms of getting faculty on board, I think definitely doing faculty development sessions, you know, and that’s an area that here we definitely need to work on and improve on. So that’s definitely an area of improvement for us, you know, because like recognizing that faculty have a lot on their plate too, and it’s just like, you know, when you meet with your advisers, you know, these are some things that we can talk about. So that’s definitely something that’s important because you have to change the culture, you know, of your school in terms of, I’ve just forgot your second question.

Alejandra

26:50  How do you track the students? Meaning, how do you ensure or because you need to provide them with constant feedback and say, okay, here’s, what we told you and share with you and together or by yourself, you came up with a plan of action?

Yolanda

27:08  Yes.

Alejandra

27:08  What happened? Let’s have a reflection on that?

Yolanda

27:11  Yes. And again, I will go refer back to technology. So we use.

Alejandra

27:16  And…

Yolanda

27:17  So something that we’ve implemented since the use of it is I go in and look at student performance not only on individual exams but their overall performance in all of their courses. And so when we have students who either score less than a 65 percent on one exam or they’re failing a course, I reach out to them and, you know, let them know, I, you know, I’ve identified this, come in to meet with me. We also have a learning specialist. And so I let them know that opportunity is available to them should they want to do that. And then pretty much after that, they’re I watch them. So I look at whether or not their performance is improving in those courses. Are they in, you know, are they passing future exams? And if I see that they’re not, then they get another letter from me like, hey, let’s talk, you know, and to see what’s going on. We also have a program called pro mediation where when students, the first time they don’t pass… an exam and major assessment, they are, the course coordinator reaches out to them, meets with them and develops a plan for them. And so, you know, they’re you know, checking in with their adviser or, and their course coordinator on their performance, talking about streamlining, we’re trying to streamline all of that under my office because with influx, I make notes, you know, so here’s their action plan, you know, and then I can go in and say, okay, let me check. Let me reach out to that student and see how are they doing on the action plan. And then also because we work with our learning specialist, then I’m able to have that conversation with her on. Did the student come to you? What were some of the things that they spoke about as their challenges? So that we can make sure that we’re all working together. It’s kind of to use a medical term. It’s like a medical home for education. And so, but we wanna again make sure that we’re streamlining it so that, you know, there’s someone that knows that sees the whole picture with that student instead of everyone kind of working individually. So we’re doing that now. But the pro mediation is something that we’ve done for a very long time and we found using our data, we found that with that program, we were able to identify students early on to be able to interact with them and engage in them before it got too late. So that they were able to see what they needed to do to improve so that they could be successful in that program. And so we were able to use what we found in our data to say, hey, we’re catching students early on early enough for them to be able to make a turnaround and be successful.

Alejandra

30:29  And that’s the whole difference between data and insights. So, and spreadsheets and insights in order to be, for something to be insightful, it has to be on time if you tell the students that they’re at risk, but they don’t have a chance to improve performance, meaning maybe they need more than 120 on the final exam because that’s…

Yolanda

30:52  It…

Alejandra

30:53  Then that information was not in cycle at all. It was just data. It was just telling them you’re gonna fail, right?

Yolanda

31:00  Right.

Alejandra

31:00  So… that’s why I wanted to have a topic about how do we move from data or spreadsheets to insights?

Yolanda

31:09  Yes.

Alejandra

31:09  And Hardie, what I wanted to ask you is what advice would you give to any program that is looking at implementing data analytics?

Yolanda

31:18  Or…

Alejandra

31:19  Insights into their assessment and a creation process?

Yolanda

31:23  Yes. Well, we’ll definitely do it.

Alejandra

31:25  By, as we.

Yolanda

31:27  Cause I love it, but definitely do it because it’s it is, it’s something that’s manageable. I know sometimes people hear data and they kinda back away from it, but don’t let the data scare you. It is approachable. And it can help in so many ways. You know, it can help improve our students, help them learn more, help them become more excited about what they’re learning and how they’re learning. It helps our faculty do a better job in the classroom when they’re able to say like, you know, the students are really engaged, the students are really learning when I teach this way, but also overall helps improve your program. So, not only are you using the data to look at your programmatic outcomes, you can use it for your strategic planning. You can use it to determine, you know, where are our students coming from? You know, and it can really be used to move your school as a whole to the next level. And so, I think it’s something that we have to do. And I would say don’t just do it because a cpe or any other crediting agency is asking for it, incorporate this to say this can help our school become better overall and just don’t be afraid to dive in.

Alejandra

32:58  That’s a great advice. I love it. Data can be intimidating. But once you start navigating through it, it’s it could be so insightful.

Yolanda

33:07  Yes.

Alejandra

33:07  And then you become a data nerd like we are definitely, then you won’t every time you wanna make a decision regardless if it’s for the program or the personal level, you’re like where’s the data. Let me see the data.

Yolanda

33:21  Exactly, and make it approachable. Use the visualizations, use the dashboards, you know, show people the story that data is telling you in a way that’s approachable. You know, so showing a table with numbers is one thing, but showing that same table with numbers in a colorful graph that if you click on things change, showing those comparisons or things like that, that’s gonna get people talking.

Alejandra

33:53  Absolutely. Thank you so much Hardy for joining us today and sharing your experience and insights on how to revolutionize assessment with analytics and Pharmacy education. Your work at the Pharmacy program is truly inspiring and it’s clear that you’re making a significant impact on the field. And I’m so happy to share your insights with our listeners. We appreciate your time and expertise, and we know that our listeners will greatly benefit from hearing your perspective. Thank you again, we hope that you come back to our show on a future topic. Maybe we can talk about how to help the students know their story with data. But before we say good bye, do you have any final thoughts or advice that you would like to share with our listeners?

Alejandra

35:12  Thank you for joining us and thank you for listening to today’s series on spreadsheets to insights, revolutionizing assessment, with analytics. You can subscribe to our events by going to influx dotcom. You can also find this on LinkedIn, where we post announcements about our solutions and resources like today’s session, Alexandra, and you have been listening to add luminaries.

Yolanda

34:41  Well, thank you again for this opportunity. I really enjoyed it and I think what I would like to leave the listeners to with is, you know, it’s data is important, don’t be intimidated by it, make it accessible and it can be used in so many ways to not only improve student learning, but it can also just help you improve your school and move your school in the direction that you want it to go. So thank you very much for the opportunity.