Educational Innovation: When Collaboration Crosses Borders

Sonia Khier, an associate professor of pharmacokinetics, and Maud Harnichard, an educational engineer at the School of Pharmacy, have combined their expertise to rethink the teaching of pharmacokinetics and pharmacometrics in an international educational context. Their collaboration has led to the development of a teaching approach tailored to African students (from Senegal, the DRC, Togo, and Tunisia), who are supervised by instructors located across three continents (Europe, the Americas, and Africa).

Drawing on Maud Harnichard’s expertise in cognitive neuroscience and Sonia Khier’s teaching experience in her field, they explored the specific challenges of learning a scientific discipline in a foreign language. This work led to the publication of the article “Pharmacometrics education for all by overcoming language barriers to enhance global collaboration” in the scientific journal Journal of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics (indexed on PubMed), highlighting the importance of dialogue between teachers and instructional designers for innovation in education.