Lean more about how Arapahoe Community College Emergency Medical Services Academy partners with Osmosis to build out primary coursework for remote courses.
The Program
Arapahoe Community College has made it their mission to provide innovative and responsive educational opportunities in an accessible environment. Their focus on teaching and learning excellence and student success has led Arapahoe Community College EMS Academy to become a leader in Colorado education and home to one of the few four-year critical care based paramedic bachelor’s degrees in the United States. As the Director of Arapahoe Community College Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Academy, Dennis Edgerly,M.Ed. EMTP, plays a crucial role in continuing this mission while supporting modern-day student needs.
The Challenge
Finding reliable content faculty can use to support virtual lectures and build out coursework for online classes that match course learning objectives.
Arapahoe Community College started to build out their online Advanced Paramedic Practitioner degree in 2020, with the goal of providing an accessible and flexible bachelor’s degree for working paramedics around the country. Throughout the four-year program, students dive deeper into pathophysiology, lab interpretations, long-term care, and variation in patient presentations. “We needed a way to provide students with some form of advanced, in-depth pathophysiology to increase their depth and breadth of knowledge on all these topics,” explains Edgerly.
The Solution
Integrating Osmosis as primary coursework to teach and clarify complex advanced paramedic concepts to a fully remote class that requires accessible online content and resources.
Edgerly was first introduced to Osmosis through a colleague who had used Osmosis while attending medical school. Once it was decided the new Advanced Paramedic Practitioner degree would be fully online, Edgerly took time exploring the Osmosis platform to ascertain whether it encompassed the requisite course content. “I found tons of amazing resources that I could use as primary educational pieces,” said Edgerly.
After moving forward with the partnership, the program adopted Osmosis videos as primary coursework to provide a more comprehensive scope of course topics. “From there I can expand and add other links to websites like the CDC. Then they can write a paper or do a project for the discussion. Whatever the assignment happens to be students move forward by extracting from what they are learning in Osmosis,” says Edgerly.
Building out playlists of Osmosis videos has allowed faculty to easily share curated lists of videos that match the course content in the order students are learning it. Embedding individual videos into EMS Academy’s learning management system (LMS) saves student time by reducing the switches between platforms. When building out lesson plans, Edgerly simply “links the video into the [LMS] that I want them to watch.”
“It’s a great product. I think it fits our need really well for our Advanced Paramedic Practice degree.”
Dennis Edgerly, M.Ed. EMTP, EMS Academy Director
The Result
Positive outcomes and student reception have made Osmosis videos primary coursework for EMS Academy’s Advanced Paramedic Practice program and is utilized in post-graduation self-learning.
After being introduced, Osmosis was an immediate success with students. “They thought it was a great benefit,” Edgerly recalls. His students “speak fondly of the content and the way it’s presented. They can stop, go back and forward. It makes it extremely user friendly.”
Students use assigned Osmosis videos as the starting point to gain knowledge on the concepts they need to explain and demonstrate in patient care plans, discussions, and paper assignments. “The depth of how Osmosis videos describe things is perfect for what we need to do,” says Edgerly, “Osmosis is an amazing learning tool.”
“The depth of how Osmosis videos describe things is perfect for what we need to do. Osmosis is an amazing learning tool.”
The Osmosis video style has resonated with how students learn and digest the information they need to know, for not only exams, but real-life practice. Even after graduating, many students still take advantage of Osmosis’s digestible, whiteboard style videos. Edgerly has students that “continue to use Osmosis post school,” as continued learning materials and refreshers.
