WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Physician Assistant Program has been named the recipient of the college’s 2017 President’s Award for Outstanding Assessment of Student Learning.
Employees of the program received the honor Jan. 5 at the all-college meeting that opened the Spring 2018 semester.
The President’s Award for Outstanding Assessment of Student Learning recognizes initiative and creativity in facilitating student learning and reflects the college’s commitment to ongoing assessment of student learning outcomes.
The physician assistant program uses a variety of assessment tools to analyze how students’ knowledge has developed and how well it can be applied in clinical settings and capstone projects. Each instructor prepares a course assessment at the end of each semester.
The goal is to ensure that student learning meets the goals of the program and the standards of commission that accredits the program.
Based on those assessments, in 2016-17, increased pharmacology content was incorporated into the curriculum to further integrate pharmacology with clinical medicine. Results of the Physician Assistant Clinical Knowledge Rating and Assessment Tool – an online test for students – showed that the additional pharmacology coursework, along with its integration into clinical medicine, led to higher student scores in five of seven areas in Summer 2017.
“Using assessment effectively in the classroom and throughout the program is inherent to our PA program’s self-assessment process and reflects continuous data collection, analysis, discussion and action plans to ‘close the loop,’” said Edward A. Henninger, former dean of health sciences, who has since become special assistant to the provost. “Never viewed as a singular act, their assessment activities are commendable and always aim to inform teaching and, ultimately, student learning.”
Prerequisite courses for the new combined Bachelor of Science/Master of Science in physician assistant studies began in Fall 2017. Penn College’s physician assistant program has been granted “accreditation-continued” by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant.
To learn more about the physician assistant program at Penn College, call 570-327-4519 or visit www.pct.edu/pa.