Meeting & Agendas

ACC has implemented Guided Pathways across all campuses. Ten Areas of Study in ACC’s Guided Pathway initiative with Health Science being one of them. All students declare an area of study and attend an info session for that area. It is still unclear how the advisors will fall under this system. The Health Sciences Division expressed concerns that there should be a dedicated advisor for only the Health Science programs because of the uniqueness of each program. This did not happen and instead the Health Science advisor also advises students for other programs. Students cannot declare a Health Science major until officially accepted into the program. There is now an Associate of Science Pre-Health Sciences degree to complete the prerequisites until they are accepted into the program. This degree encompasses all the prerequisites for the majority of Health Science programs. B. HS Open House HS had its second open house in February. There was a bigger effort to market this in advance and like last year, it was open to the entire community to learn more about these programs. It was well attended and there was a good participation by the department faculty and students. C. Online Application Process—NOT ADDRESSED

A. Graduate Outcomes 1. Licensure Pass Rates The Class of 2016 had a 100% first-attempt pass rate and that continues our current streak to nine years. 2. Graduation Rates The past four years: Class of 2013 = 85%; Class of 2014 = 89.5%; Class of 2015; 95%; Class of 2016 = 90%. This meet the CAPTE standards for graduation rates. The current cohort and the previous two, have had 22 students. 3. Employment Rates 2013 = 100% employment; 2014 = 85.71%; 2015 = 94.12%; 2016 = surveyed in May 2017; not all students represented in these numbers were employed full-time. CAPTE does not require reporting for full-time vs. part-time employment and we have seen an increasing number of students not employed full-time after one year after graduation. This data set informs our decision about class size. Additionally, clinical instructors are reporting burning out due to so many requests from schools asking for placements and challenging productivity rates for CIs. CIs are not provided relief from productivity standards when they have students. B. Technology Acquisition 1. ExamSoft ExamSoft has been a very useful software for the program and the faculty have decided to adopt it. Both the PTA and OTA programs use the software and with the help from the Dean’s budget, we have been able to cover the costs so students do not have to pay anything. 2. Electronic Documentation Software The program needs to secure software that provides students the opportunity to practice documenting in this way. Addendum 4/20/17: Currently exploring the use of WebPT. They offer an educational subscription that is only $99/year. C. Faculty 1. New Hire We had a new hire this semester due to necessity. Patty is involved in a college initiative that required a reduction in her teaching load. Angie Richardson was hired to help Patty with the clinical courses and with the Professional Issues course. 2. Patty and ACC Faculty Fellows ACC identified a lack of active learning methods and ACC wanted to encourage faculty to use more interactive teaching methods. Patty will collect data and report back to the fellows. At this time, she has completed the changes to her unit and the grades were comparable to the previous year. Kelly Hutchinson suggested that it would be interesting to determine if retention of the material is different vs. previous delivery method. Patty will measure look at the final exam to determine if there have been any changes to these scores. The ScoreBuilders practice exams can also be used to measure retention since it does break the exam results into sections (musculoskeletal) and will also help faculty determine if covering less material in class led to gaps in knowledge. 3. PTA MACS Revisions Patty leading a committee to revise the PTA MACS to better follow wording from the new CAPTE Standards. These changes will be completed in this spring semester. The PTA MACS are also undergoing a validity and reliability study. I am currently collecting data for the reliability portion. D. CAPTE Re-accreditation Update We are currently in our self-study year. The on-site visit is scheduled for January 2018. CAPTE will need to interview advisory committee members and I will send emails in December to schedule these meetings with anyone that is able.

A. Standard 6A 1. Review of Documents Advisory Committee provided the information sources for development or changes in curriculum. Committee reviewed CAPTE Standard 7 and is used as the primary source for development of curriculum. Also used: APTA’s Minimum Required Skills of PTA Graduates at Entry-Level; Faculty continuing education; Advisory Committee Input; Clinical Instructor Feedback Forms; FSBPT Content Outline. 2. Review of Curriculum Plan Advisory committee suggested more focus on manual techniques. If a PT is taking a student PTA, and this therapist focuses primarily on manual therapy, this could make it difficult to have a student placed at this facility. If this CI does not focus heavily on therapeutic exercise, it would be difficult for the learning experience to be beneficial if the student does not come in with basic manual therapy skills and if the CI is not aware of what is beyond the PTAs training. Because of such variety in techniques, certifications, etc., it is difficult to narrow to what should be included in the curriculum. Advisory committee suggested exposing students to newer techniques being developed, e.g. dry needling. The education does not have to be extensive, but if a student PTA was aware of the indications, contraindications, and the mechanisms behind the techniques, they could better communicate to the PT when a patient would benefit from these. This could be done as a guest lecture or through the current project done in PTHA 2360. Advisory committee suggested bringing in newer surgical techniques into courses. The licensure exam is reflected of content in several textbooks that likely does not include most recent surgical advancements. The program’s textbooks are commonly used by other schools, as indicated in the FSBPT survey on textbooks. B. Standard 6 K 1. Length of Program CAPTE allows programs to deliver content in 5-semesters, 80 academic weeks, or 104 calendar weeks. This would allow us to offer courses in the summer between spring 1 and fall 2. Fall 2 has two 9-week courses for the second year students before they leave for the first rotation. The instructor for PTHA 2435 (one of the 9-week second year courses) also teaches PTHA 1409, another 9-week course. This is a heavy instructional load and one that is hard on both students and instructors. Faculty has had preliminary discussions of moving one second-year course and one first-year course into the summer to help alleviate this load. This would allow students more time to work and also more time to effectively learn the material. Additionally, students have expressed to faculty that the summer affects retention of material when they do not have to apply the information regularly. Advisory committee stated there would be some positive aspects of utilizing the summer semester. Dean of HS stated that financial aid may also be limited or unavailable for the summer semesters. The DC needs to talk to Teri Bazan at FA to get details on this move. ACTION ITEMS: 1) Talk to Teri Bazan; 2) Calculate faculty loads with these changes

A. IPR Process Advisory Committee provided demographic data for the program and for the college. Advisory Committee suggested searching the APTA site for demographic data for the profession. This could also help determine where the program should focus recruitment. Program has identified African-American students as being underrepresented and should focus recruitment towards improving these numbers. The Dean of HS suggested getting demographic data from the entire applicant pool to see if any African-American students are applying and not getting in. She also suggested getting in touch with Ashley King in the Area Health Education Center. This group works with middle and high schools to get them interested in a variety of health programs. She would have contact information for schools that have a high population of minority ethnicities. Consider contacting professional associations at universities that are especially for minority students. Advisory Committee also suggested mentioning the salary for the PTA degree as a marketing strategy. Also, consider targeting students with the pre-PT degree that were unable to get into PT school. Advisory Committee provided update on the flipped classroom model after the 60-credit hour rule enactment. Data was provided that compared the last three PTHA 1513 exam averages with the first two years of PTHA 1413 exam averages. Formal assessment will be done after three years of data with PTHA 1413 after fall of 2017. After review of data, advisory committee commented that several variables could be impacting the slightly lower test averages but a more in-depth look at how students do on the licensure prep exams could provide information on long-term retention. Information was also presented on PTHA 1321 to discuss whether the rigor of this online course is similar to those offered in the classroom. While the distribution of grades was skewed heavier towards Bs and As than the other first semester courses, the FSBPT content breakdown indicated students were learning the information necessary to pass licensure. Advisory committee did not think it was necessary to make the course more challenging if students were performing well on the FSBPT exam. B. Standard 2 1. 2B4 Program Space No change 2. 2B4 Equipment/Technology Discussed previously; see II B for details 3. 2B5 Review of Program Policies and Procedures Not discussed due to time constraints 4. 2B5 Adhering to Policies and Procedures Not discussed due to time constraints C. PSLOs 1. Fall Assessment/2. Spring Assessment Advisory Committee presented with the PSLO assessment process and how it helps meet CAPTE requirements. Faculty are involved and collecting data. D. Applicant Pool 2016 1. Number Accepted Twenty-two students accepted 2. Retention Rate Five withdrew after the end of the fall one semester. One lost to health reasons and four to grades; 77% retention rate. Advisory committee asked if all students failed PTHA 1413 Functional Anatomy. Only one did not fail PTHA 1413 Functional Anatomy. Dean asked about remediation process and program offers weekend open labs and all students met with either Patty Collier or Jose Milan. These students had test taking difficulties and also had either significant outside of school commitments or other health conditions that took time away from school work. E. Employer Survey Results Based on feedback from the Advisory Committee, graduate employer surveys now include space for them to include their employer contact information to know which facilities have new grads and where to send the surveys. It was an improvement, as we had more returned than in previous years, but still well short of any meaningful data. For this year, DC polled students out on rotations to determine which sites had ACC graduates as employees. Students were responsible for delivering and returning the surveys. This led to more returns, but again, still short of meaningful data.

One student voted by peers across the state to be the PTA rep to the APTA HOD

Advisory Committee inquired about the other PTA program in town and whether the cost was comparable to ACC.

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