Enhance Speech-Language Pathology Students’ Exam Readiness—Integrate Board Prep into Curriculum Early

Preparing for the Praxis^® can be an overwhelming experience for many students, given the broad scope of content covered and difficulty determining which topics to prioritize. Many schools offer end-of-program practice exams and intensive review sessions that may benefit some but at-risk students who are struggling with the curriculum are unlikely to see the same results. Attempting to squeeze in a vast amount of learning within a short period could even lead to stress and possible burnout.

A more effective and sustainable way to ensure exam-readiness is to integrate board prep into the curriculum from day one and throughout the speech-language pathology (SLP) program entirety. This involves embedding exam-style questions and content into class materials and lectures or assigning them to students as coursework or assessments, allowing faculty to track and monitor progress and performance longitudinally.

TrueLearn: Empowering faculty to steer Praxis® exam outcomes

Leading digital learning platform TrueLearn offer all that through a SmartBank of board-style practice questions that can be leveraged as customized quizzes and allow for formative and summative assessment. This allows programs and faculty to maximize first-time Praxis^® exam pass rates and ensure the curriculum aligns with program objectives.

Integrating TrueLearn into the SLP curriculum from day one to augment didactics empower both educators and students to tackle the breadth of material and level of content mastery required for the Praxis^®. At the same time, program directors and faculty will gain access to real-time predictive and comparative data that surfaces insights on at-risk students, remediation needs, faculty development, and curriculum improvement.

How does TrueLearn support SLP programs?

Comprehensive board review

TrueLearn’s SmartBank for SLP is enriched with over 950 practice questions, written by certified SLPs, covering categories mapped to the Praxis^® content line. Students can use them for comprehensive reviews of all the material that are likely to appear on the exam.

Each question comes with rich answer explanations that make it easy for students to see what they missed, understand what makes some answers incorrect, and why the correct answer is the best choice. Furthermore, students can make multiple attempts at answering and will not be penalized if they get a question wrong. The focus of this low-stakes recall practice is to ensure students develop deep understanding of the topics versus simply aiming to get the right answer, optimizing their readiness to take on high-stakes exams such as the Praxis^®.

Customizable assessments based on need

Educators can create quizzes and customize them around topics that students need to focus more on. The quizzes can be assigned to entire cohorts or selected students, as educators have the flexibility of tailoring the content to address individual student learning needs, style, and pace. Results from the quizzes will help faculty to zoom in on areas where a student needs support or remediation, so they can then tailor lessons and assessments to cover those topics and help elevate overall learning toward content mastery. For students, it means better allocation of their study time and effort, enabling them to better manage the demanding course load while increasing information retention and knowledge recall.

Science-based learning, powered by data

The TrueLearn solution infuses proven elements of cognitive science to help SLP students learn, retain, and recall key learnings in preparation for licensure exams. Low-stakes retrieval practice, spaced repetition, utilizing AI algorithms to combat the effects of the “forgetting curve” and testing effect are among the learning techniques employed.

Besides high-quality questions and ability to integrate formative and summative assessments into the curriculum easily, TrueLearn also serves up robust data tracking and analytics tools to generate critical insights covering important metrics such as student progress, performance, learning and testing behaviors, strengths and weaknesses, and exam readiness. These will inform faculty on the most effective ways to course-correct curricular and learning gaps ahead of exams. Educators can then design lesson plans to address specific needs and steer programs toward meeting their stated goals.

The powerful combination of science-based learning and data-driven tools makes TrueLearn an ideal solution to drive better learning and licensure outcomes among SLP students. Integrated into the curriculum from the start, TrueLearn can support efficient and effective teaching, learning, and exam prep.

_{Praxis^® is a registered trademark of Educational Testing Service (ETS). This content is not endorsed or approved by ETS.}