CTE Curriculum
Prepare learners with CTE curriculum aligned to industry standards.
In Search of Something Different
Holly Maisano has spent the past eighteen years as an instructor at the Lancaster County Career & Technology Center (LCCTC) in Willow Street, Pennsylvania. She taught Medical Administrative Assistant for 17 years, and has just completed her first year teaching the Medical Assistant Program.
Holly takes pride in what she does, teaching students essential skills to secure futures as highly-demanded Medical Assistants. As with many medical careers, this profession is booming and projected to experience significant growth in the coming years.
Early in her teaching career, however, Holly realized that a textbook just wasn’t going to cut it for the kind of class she wanted to teach. Students just weren’t that interested in textbooks, after all. Instead, Holly needed a more modern solution, and she got her chance when she was sent with a group of other teachers to try out HealthCenter21 for their programs.
“I realized right away, even back then, that technology is what students were starting to gravitate towards, and they like seeing video lessons and interactive activities, not just a live teacher. I bought into it; I thought it was a great idea! So I recommended it and was one of the first ones to use it in my classroom, and then some other healthcare teachers at CTC hopped on board with it.”
A New Kind of Curriculum
Though she only used HealthCenter21 lightly at first, Holly quickly realized its value when teaching subjects like infection control or anatomy and physiology.
“My administrative medical assistant textbooks didn’t go into enough detail with certain topics such as Infection Control, Medical Math, or Anatomy & Physiology, so I knew HealthCenter21 was a better way for me to teach it instead of creating lesson plans on my own . . . without many resources to do so.”
Over time, Holly’s students began to engage with HealthCenter21, favoring its interactivity and technological take on education. Many of her students claim they like it because it makes the subject material easier to understand than their textbook, and helps them score better on tests. This is partially because they have the choice to watch videos, play games, and engage with the information on a whole different level.
“That is the other thing they enjoy…the interactivity of the lessons! Especially in the anatomy & physiology and medical terminology units when they can have the matching or labeling visual connection activities. It's much more interactive than a textbook, and it's a better way of learning for many students' learning styles.”
Meeting Diverse Student Needs
In addition to better engaging her students, Holly also values HealthCenter21 for its capacity to help her meet diverse student needs. In her Medical Assistant Program, Holly teaches dozens of learners from many different backgrounds and experience levels. This makes it much more difficult to get by using just a textbook. 
Instead, Holly uses HealthCenter21 in conjunction with her textbook to differentiate her classroom and make it easier for her students to absorb the knowledge they need.
“Our textbooks are written on a college level. Our students are all different levels when they come to the CTC, and some students have learning disabilities and language barriers, and that is where I think HealthCenter21 comes into play. I can teach a certain topic out of the textbook, and then I can assign part of or all of the unit that matches it in HealthCenter21. It communicates the information in a different way to them, and in turn, students have more understanding of the assigned topic.”
Even the ability to hear medical terms or procedures spoken out loud in HealthCenter21 goes a long way toward helping some students better retain information.
“Every student is different, some like that HealthCenter21 reads the lessons (auditory learners), or that they can read the script on the screen (visual learners), whichever is best for them. It's so good for the different learners that we get at the CTC. They're more successful because they don’t just have a textbook to read, they can go to HealthCenter21 and actually hear it as well.”
Giving Students a Second Chance
Besides using HealthCenter21 to differentiate her instruction, Holly also uses it to remediate students who aren’t going on to internships for the spring semester.
“We use [HealthCenter21] heavily in the spring when some of our students don't earn or qualify for a clinical internship. These students stay in the school, and we remediate their knowledge and skills with HealthCenter21 for the topics that they have been struggling with.”
By remediating her students with HealthCenter21, Holly gives them the opportunity to pick up some skills they might have missed the first time around, or even learn entirely new topics that can benefit them in the job search and life beyond school. This includes curriculum modules like Financial Literacy and Cultural Diversity, which help teach students valuable professional skills.
By using HealthCenter21 to further educate these students, it ensures that even the students who stay in class don’t fall behind in their education. It enables them to complete the program with valuable skills for the workforce.
Structure in Uncertain Times
One of the things Holly is most thankful to HealthCenter21 for is the structure it provided her classroom in the days of the COVID shutdowns. While teachers in other programs were forced to scramble to adjust their courses to accommodate the pandemic, Holly was able to stay the course and ensure her students received the education they needed.
“I used it a lot during the shutdown because there were topics that we didn't cover yet in March when we all had to be at home. I used HealthCenter21 to finish out my curriculum with lessons that were already created and interactive for students.”
The level of flexibility HealthCenter21 offered meant Holly had a curriculum she could use entirely from the safety of her home. During these times, she had her students complete the digital modules, eLearning lessons, and electronic worksheets within HealthCenter21---all resources that can be used virtually.
“I could assign topics online and not have to recreate the wheel. It allowed me to teach from home without all of my materials I was accustomed to having in my classroom. That was a huge blessing during the shutdown. HealthCenter21 made it so much easier for me.”
A Constant in the Classroom
For all it helped her during the pandemic, however, Holly feels HealthCenter21 is most effective when teachers use it to enhance and refine their lectures, rather than replace them.
“You shouldn’t solely use HealthCenter21 and not teach the students in person. You have to use it in addition, adjacent to what you're teaching. They still need a real teacher in front of them. Then, when the time arises that a teacher can’t be there, this program makes it easy to still provide a quality lesson when there is a substitute teacher in the classroom with students.”
Overall, Holly values HealthCenter21 for how adaptable it makes her course. Between engaging and remediating students, differentiating her instruction, and allowing her to teach from home when necessary, it brings a level of flexibility to her classroom that no textbook can match.
Indeed, Holly has made HealthCenter21 such an integral part of her curriculum structure, that she claims it would be strange learning to teach without it, and she would fight to keep it, should the need arise.
“I've been here for eighteen years and have seen many, many changes. But through it all, I've kept HealthCenter21 as a constant,” she says. “I can’t really remember a time that I didn’t use it, and I don’t intend to stop now!”