The list below is an overview of our Pharmacy Technician lesson library. For a full list of all lessons, including all versions (e.g., digital options, v-scope/slide options) of individual lessons, and the individual lesson SKUs, please visit the Lesson SKUs by Discipline page.

• Quality  Matters Certified!
  • The SI Pharmacy Technician suite is Quality Matters certified. Click here to access the official certificate.
• Interactive Introductory Content 
  • Ever lab incorporates at least one interactive (animation, summary image, interactive activity, etc.) in the Exploration to increase student engagement with the curriculum.
  • These are designed to blend seamlessly into the curriculum and are always called out ahead of time in the paragraph prior with directions as to how to interact with the item.
• Real Experience with Pharmacy Techniques and Materials
  • Students will receive authentic items that they would encounter in a real pharmacy. This includes counting trays, pharmacy spatulas, IVs, IV tubing, and mortar and pestles. The techniques conveyed will be directly applicable to their careers within a pharmacy, ensuring they are prepared to meet the demands of their career. 
• Digital Labs
  • There are currently 7 fully digital lessons available for Pharmacy Technician. A comprehensive list can be found in the FAQ section.
  • These lessons primarily focus on soft skills, such as addressing emergency situations, interpreting prescription forms, and reconciling medications. Other digital lessons focus on skills that cannot be practiced at home, such as using an automated drug dispensing system.
• Set-Up Videos
  • Set-up videos are incorporated into experiments to guide students through complicated techniques and set-ups.
• Safety
  • An safety overview is required in all courses, and includes a safety video, safety contract, and all relevant information for students ahead of beginning their experiments.

• Compounding - Solutions and Suspensions
  • This lesson covers how to make solutions and suspensions, which are an essential technique for pharmacy technicians in all settings.
  • In the first experiment, students compound a solution.
  • In the second experiment, students compound a suspension.
  • Materials include mortar and pestle, mixing spatula, drug placebos, and liquid medicine containers.
  • The techniques taught in this lab are essential for pharmacy technicians in both pharmacies and hospitals. Students can also have a hard time differentiating solutions and suspensions, so this lab provides an in-depth overview of the differences between the two.

• Preparing Hospital Drugs
  • This lesson covers preparation of drugs that are uniquely dispensed in a hospital setting, including IVs, investigational drugs, and syringes.
  • In the first experiment, students learn how to withdraw medication into a syringe from ampules and vials.
  • In the second experiment, students learn how to inject the contents of a syringe, into an IV bag using aseptic techniques.
  • In the third experiment, students learn how to prepare, distribute, and store investigational drugs.
  • Materials include a counting tray, IV bag and tubing, sharps container, syringes, training ampules, and training vials.
  • Hospital drugs often require a special degree of care in preparing, due to the need for maintaining aseptic conditions to prevent contamination and potential infection. This lesson is an essential for any instructor preparing students to be a pharmacy technician in a hospital setting.

Other good labs to demo:

• Prescription Forms and Labeling - Students learn how to read a prescription form and how to create a label for a medication based on a prescription form. This is a fully digital lesson that has a great interactive in the experiment.
• Equipment Practice - Really basic lesson that teaches students the fundamental techniques they will use as a pharmacy technician. It includes learning how to use a mixing spatula, serological pipet, mortar and pestle, and counting tray. The experimentation here includes several great technque videos.
• Compounding - Ointments and Cream and Compounding - Emulsions - The other two compounding labs. Similar benefits to showing Compounding - Solutions and Suspensions.

• Cloud is WCAG 2.1 Compliant.
• All videos are closed captioned.
• All images use Alt Tags.
• Interactives, including digital experiments, are all designed to be screen reader compatible.

• None of our competitors - including both hands-on and physical lab kit vendors - offer a Pharmacy Technician kit. To our knowledge, our kit is the only one available on the market.

• More Lessons Available - The historic ESL curriculum included four or six total lessons, depending on the standard kit used. The new SI kit includes 17 lessons, including a number of digital options.
• Expanded Focus - The new SI curriculum includes a number of lessons focused on soft skills (e.g., emergency situations, customer service) and hospital pharmacies, in addition to the basic compounding techniques taught in the historic ESL content.
• Access to the SI Cloud - All the great features of Cloud, including autograding, gradebook, LTI integration, and question customization.
• Fully Redesigned Curriculum - Including best practices in instructional design (content chunking, visual engagement, etc.). The new curriculum includes interactives/videos that will increase student engagement and retention.
• New and Updated Experiments - The new curriculum includes a mix of old a new experiments. Old experiments have been updated based on instructor and student feedback. New experiments are included for both existing lessons and new lessons.

Is the pharmacy technician curriculum QM certified? 

• Yes! Pharmacy Technician was QM certified in April 2023. It will retain its certification for three years. Click here to access the official certificate. 

Is the pharmacy technician curriculum ASHP certified?

• ASHP does not certify lab kits. If this becomes available, we will submit the curriculum for review. However, our kits have been used by programs to achieve ASHP certification, and can be used to meet the laboratory hours required to achieve ASHP certification.

How does the pharmacy technician kit differ from our other kits?

• The SI Pharmacy Technician kit is quite different than the rest of our product lines, primarily because it focuses less on concepts and more on practical skills. Students in a pharmacy technician program need to be able to demonstrate that they can work in a pharmacy upon completion of their degree/certificate program, through practical skills such as repackaging medication, interpreting labels, etc. Additionally, pharmacy technician programs require students to be trained in soft skills, such as good customer service and addressing emergency scenarios.

Why is hospital and retail pharmacy technician differentiated? 

• No matter where a pharmacy technician is working, there are many basic skills that are considered required knowledge. However, there are some drugs/formulations/activities that will only be encountered in a hospital. This includes IVs, syringes, and the dispensation of investigational drugs for clinical trials. Furthermore, a hospital pharmacy needs to support all areas of a hospital, so a hospital pharmacy technician needs to know how to fill floor stock (the basic set of items kept on each floor of a hospital to ensure doctors and nurses can adequately take care of their patients).

Do you have a hospital-only pharmacy technician kit?

• Most pharmacy technician programs support retail pharmacy or a combination of retail and hospital. We have not seen a strong requirement at this point in time for a hospital-only kit. That being said, a hospital-only kit can be customized from our lessons, and we will keep tabs on requests as we move forward to determine if there is a need here.

Which pharmacy technician lesson are digital-only?