Case Study in Excellence: Faculty member Mustapha Beleh taps technology’s capacity to bring medicinal chemistry alive

P-2 Brandon Tripp receives his midterm exam during a visit to the office of Mustapha Beleh.

As the son of a university professor, Mustapha A. Beleh, Department of Medicinal Chemistry lecturer, literally does have teaching in his blood.

It shows.

Since his first faculty job at South Dakota State University College of Pharmacy one decade ago, Beleh has been on a never-ending quest to find new and better ways to teach pharmacy students concepts in medicinal chemistry.

”My main goal now, as always, is to help students develop critical and creative thinking skills and to see the big picture as opposed to memorizing a bunch of isolated facts,“ explains Beleh, who teaches Medicinal Chemistry 412 (MC412) to P-2 students. “Although it’s not always evident — especially for students who are in the early stages of their PharmD training — medicinal chemistry relates to everyday pharmacy practice in countless ways. The challenge for me, as an educator, is to make complex medicinal chemistry concepts accessible, relevant, and, hopefully, fun to learn.”

Since joining the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy faculty in 1999, Beleh has tapped the capabilities of computer technology to achieve these ends — with results nothing short of amazing. So amazing, in fact, that his Web creation, “The Medicinal Chemistry Virtual Library,” has just received a Computerworld Information Technology Award: the 11th College of Pharmacy Web-based teaching module so honored. The “Library” also has been added to the Smithsonian Institution’s collection of innovative technology applications, and is in the running for top honors in Computerworld’s annual showcase of innovative information technology applications.

The “Library” consists of an intricately designed, content-rich Web site encompassing:

• animations illustrating concepts such as drug action and biochemical pathways;
• 2,500 chemical structures (the majority assembled by Beleh himself) including nearly all clinically available agents in the U.S., each classified according to their mechanism of action, generic name, trade name, and the general classification of each drug;
• an array of review exams and “interactive lectures” (i.e., annotated lectures placed online with links to chemical structures demonstrating the molecular dynamic principles discussed during classroom sessions);
• a chat room for students to meet online with Beleh, and each other, after class hours (and in addition to Beleh’s regular office hours), to discuss prickly med-chem material;
• an archive of patient education Web sites created by students as a requirement of their MC412 course;
• and much more.

Beleh also uses Web-based technology to assess student progress throughout the course, starting with a pre-test to determine how much knowledge students retain from previous courses. If they are rusty in some areas, he can spend a little more time, early on, bringing the class up to speed. The assessment continues via pre-recitation refresher quizzes, chat room consultations, and ongoing face-to-face and online dialogues with students.

Beleh even uses an initial, online survey to ascertain class learning style so that he can tailor his teaching style accordingly.

“Each class has a different personality and different learning style,” Beleh observes. “By knowing how they prefer to learn — for example, if they would rather listen than talk, or talk than listen — I have a better sense of how to manage the classroom dynamic. I still expect students to engage in active learning, but knowing the class’ dominant learning style means I may have to be more creative in thinking up ways to get students involved.”

Interactions readers who would like to take a closer look at some of the Web-based learning modules used by Mustapha Beleh can do so by pointing their Web browser to: http://sitemaker .umich.edu/medchemlibrary.

E-mail: mbeleh@umich.edu.