Dive into how The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s Physician Assistant Program uses Osmosis to provide reliable, engaging supplemental materials and leveling support.
The Program
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s (UTRGV) Physician Assistant Program is an innovative model designed to educate a diverse student population with the goal of transforming healthcare delivery for the multicultural population of South Texas. It is the second-largest Hispanic serving university in the US with a focus on serving the local community.
One of the main program goals is to “create a supportive environment for faculty and staff that promotes continued educational development, ingenuity, scholarship, and collaboration,” shares Program Director, Department Chair and Clinical Associate Professor, Dr. Juliann Garza-Castillo PhD, PA-C, CRC. With this in mind, the program emphasizes lifelong learning and student self-evaluation.
Uniquely, this starts with a 10 week Academy for Success before students even begin PA school to ensure all students have a foundation for success. In this program students get weekly check-ins and begin to meet classmates and faculty from across the program.
The Challenge
Finding quality, trusted video content that tech-savvy students will engage with.
UTRGV’s PA faculty recognize the dramatic shifts in medical education over the past decade with the increasing number of students who often prefer digital mediums. Dr. Juliann Garza and faculty began to realize, “We needed a platform or additional resource, besides reading from a textbook or article for those types of learners. We needed something that was eye-catching to our visual learners and their attention span.”
The pandemic further highlighted the student need for information in digital formats that were accurate, engaging, and concise. Faculty at UTRGV challenged themselves, “How can we really reach out to that student population that relies on that modality of learning now?” shares Dr. Garza.
Faculty sought engaging, accurate digital resources for pre-work, so that faculty could spend more time on application based activities with students. They spent hours searching the internet and YouTube to find high quality videos that aligned with their class content. One challenge in doing so, they discovered, is that many videos were inaccurate or did not address the topic the way faculty wanted to teach it.
The Solution
Integrating Osmosis into the Academy for Success to provide students and faculty with comprehensive, accurate, high-quality, content that supports structured learning, student engagement, and progress tracking.
The academy, created to set the foundation for UTRGV’s PA school, became rooted in Osmosis content. Faculty could assign playlists each week for students to watch and have peace of mind that the content is reliably accurate and designed to engage students by utilizing evidence based learning science principles. “By using Osmosis we know that we’re reaching out, giving students what they need; short informative accurate information and data, without having to pick and choose or check for validity,” shares Dr. Garza.
"By using Osmosis we know that we’re reaching out, giving students what they need: short informative accurate information and data, without having to pick and choose or check for validity.”
Juliann Garza Castillo, PhD, PA-C, CRC, Program Director, Department Chair, and Clinical Associate Professor
Faculty can easily access the videos associated with their courses through the platform navigation. Dr. Julie Garza says this was a major reason she thought Osmosis would be a good fit for the program, “The ease, the playlists, and organization of it was very user friendly. I felt our faculty would not be overwhelmed by it.”
Many other features became equally important. Transcripts allow them to read quickly through the content to see what the students would learn in each video so they can prepare any of their own questions or assign Osmosis questions associated with the video. Faculty can also track student progress through the analytics dashboard to ensure students are watching assigned playlists and assess student’s knowledge throughout the course. “Being able to track students was really important for us to keep them engaged.”
The Result
Expanded usage throughout the PA program from the Academy of Success to graduation day.
After completing the Academy for Success, students are “so fluent with Osmosis, they become reliant,” shares Dr. Garza. Osmosis videos help them develop a good overview before beginning a course and to be more prepared to engage during classes. Students started asking for Osmosis videos to be tied to every course.
Osmosis quickly became crucial, not only as a starting point for the curriculum, but also an integral part of student remediation plans. With the program’s focus on self-evaluation, any student who is struggling creates an individualized remediation plan.
Leveraging Osmosis videos into this program helped engage students and allowed faculty to assess student’s mastery of the material. After completing a remediation program using Osmosis, students consistently say, “I wish I had taken advantage of this from the get-go.”
It wasn’t just students who enjoyed using Osmosis. Once faculty learned about Osmosis playlist features, they were hooked. “We kind of addicted to making playlists and it was fun, “ explains Dr. Garza, “As faculty became more reliant on it, then they are like, ‘actually I want to use the quizzes and I want to see the analytics of who’s watching and how in detail.’” Dr. Garza shared that faculty had fun exploring the library of videos and the ease of access saved hours of time combing through the internet for reliable, high-quality content.
When asked if she would recommend Osmosis to other PA programs, Dr. Garza was emphatically positive. “Take that leap; it is definitely worth it. The user-friendliness, really being able to get to the students on their level, and the animations — it definitely will be worth it for you.”
“Take that leap; it is definitely worth it. The user-friendliness, really being able to get to the students on their level, and the animations — it definitely will be worth it for you.”
