Six Benefits of Integrating TrueLearn and Picmonic into the Physical Therapy Curriculum

The challenges faced by Physical Therapy (PT) educators are manifold. Educators need to effectively guide PT students to build foundational knowledge, strengthen their knowledge application in clinical practice, and sharpen their clinical judgment and decision-making skills—all of which are instrumental in driving optimal course, program, and NPTE^® outcomes.

To reach these goals, educators need an active learning and data-led tool to augment teaching, track student progress, identify at-risk students early enough to tailor remediation, and course-correct education plans to meet curricular goals. Students also need to be guided on the most current NPTE® format, which includes video and scenario-based items since January 2024.

TrueLearn, paired with Picmonic, offers a proven solution to simultaneously achieve these goals by enhancing students’ concept mastery and knowledge application in coursework and throughout the program. Here are six benefits of integrating TrueLearn and Picmonic into the PT curriculum in preparation for the NPTE^® in 2024 and beyond.

1. Sharpens Classroom Instruction

Both TrueLearn and Picmonic are effective teaching tools that integrate seamlessly into the curriculum to support active, engaged learning in the classroom. Covering content across multiple systems and topics tested on the NPTE^®, the paired solution allows educators to easily assign Picmonic’s mnemonic lessons as pre-lecture study material so that students come to class prepared and can be accelerated through more complex learning. Meanwhile, TrueLearn’s board-style quizzes can be used during lectures to engage students and assess their ability to apply knowledge, providing real-time feedback to faculty so misunderstandings can be corrected quickly or they can move on from mastered concepts.

Augmenting teaching with both platforms identifies weak content areas and topics for the group of students in the class and by cohort, generating actionable data to help faculty sharpen classroom instruction, leading to improved course and program outcomes.

2. Pinpoints Weak Subject Areas

TrueLearn’s SmartBank is aligned with the most current NPTE^® content outline to offer a more comprehensive test-day experience. The performance data generated from integrating TrueLearn into the curriculum helps surface learning gaps of individual students and cohorts early to guide remediation and drive optimal program and exam outcomes. To address these and help expedite long-term memory retention and recall, TrueLearn allows faculty to create and assign quizzes from over 1,700 board-style questions, including video and scenario-based items, centered around weak subject areas. Picmonic also includes low-stakes quizzes, testing more than 4,000+ need-to-know facts to surface to faculty the topics that students are struggling with. Aggregate data from both platforms then provide the longitudinal tracking necessary to support the identification of curricular gaps or redundancies, program evaluation, and track progress toward meeting curricular goals.

3. Predicts NPTE^® Outcomes

The greatest predictor of actual exam outcomes is to assess students through high-quality questions that mirror the question stems on the actual exam, are aligned to the NPTE^® outline, cover topics tested on the exam, and taken in a simulated timed and online environment. TrueLearn offers pre-created quizzes, custom quizzing, and a mock summative assessment that all yield national comparative analytics to predict future outcomes from the beginning of the program. In addition, TrueLearn has expanded the FSBPT^® blueprint categorization of questions to allow a more granular selection of questions for mock tests. Content is written by high-performing PTs and faculty members and undergoes a rigorous peer review process to ensure questions reflect the current exam style. These practice questions also come with rich answer explanations that are helpful for learning and bottom lines that focus on key takeaways.

4. Empowers Students with Self-Assessment

The demand for technology as part of students’ learning experience is a great place to start, but more focus needs to be placed on performance feedback and comparative analytics. With TrueLearn, students gain insights into their overall performance, category weaknesses and strengths, topic performance, progress over time, and even confidence range for content areas. Picmonic also provides students with real-time feedback as they answer low-stakes questions and complete spaced repetition quizzes based on their content weaknesses. Such visibility helps students understand where to focus their studies so they come to class more prepared, get more out of their courses and training, and ultimately pass the NPTE^® the first time.

5. Averts the Need for Remediation

Educators need an effective methodology to help students pivot away from rote memorization, which has a frustratingly short-lived efficacy. Implementing active learning strategies alongside the curriculum that supports the development of all students can help lessen individual remediation needs and improve overall performance and outcomes.

TrueLearn and Picmonic utilize active learning strategies and learning science principles to help with recall and spaced repetition to fight the “forgetting curve”. Faculty can choose to test and cement students’ knowledge comprehension by assigning quizzes on TrueLearn, then allow students to review their low-performing content areas on Picmonic, and vice versa. Students not only learn more effectively through these proven strategies but also improve their concept mastery and application of knowledge, leading to less of a need for remediation.

6. Improves Efficiency of Academic Hours

With TrueLearn and Picmonic, educators can optimize academic hours by saving time on lesson planning while effectively guiding students to sharpen their clinical skills. Both platforms use memory retention algorithms to improve students’ mastery of course material at the appropriate time. Students can learn any of the 4,000+ facts via over 430 video lessons on Picmonic, receive personalized daily quizzes to improve retention and recall and test their knowledge and exam preparedness with TrueLearn in a simulated test-day environment. Not only will this synergy enrich students’ learning, but it will also allow faculty to cover more content across the curriculum because students have truly mastered previously taught material.

Comprehensive exam preparation solutions based on cognitive research and learning science like TrueLearn and Picmonic have been proven to enhance learning and exam outcomes. Integrated into the curriculum, these two platforms help sharpen an educator’s toolkit with data-led resources while fostering a collaborative and active learning environment where PT students can thrive. Other physical therapy programs partner with TrueLearn, supported by Picmonic, to reap the benefits of academic excellence and optimum exam outcomes.