Whitehall Borough's Carol Stokes Helps CCAC Team Earn National Innovation Award

The League for Innovation in the Community College recently honored a team of three Community College of Allegheny County-Boyce Campus faculty members with its Innovation of the Year award.

resident Carol Stokes was one of the three CCAC teachers who devised and implemented computerized testing that incorporated Blackboard instructional technology for the college's physical therapist assistant program.

Churchill Borough resident Norman Johnson and East McKeesport Borough resident Stephen Bannister made up the rest of the winning team.

Blackboard is an educational software platform that allows instructors to conduct online courses and to enhance traditional courses with online communication and access to course materials, projects and other features.

Stokes' team's computerized testing practice has resulted in measurable benefits, including an 11-percent increase in CCAC's retention among first-year physical therapist assistant students and a 94.5-percent average pass rate on the physical therapist licensure exam. CCAC's computerized tests were designed to model the national licensure exam.

In addition, the computerized tests have significantly reduced the costs and resources of copying printed exams—a savings of 25,000 sheets of paper.

The Innovation of the Year award, now in its 29th year, was devised as a way to recognize significant innovations reflecting capstone achievements and the continuing renewal of the spirit of innovation and experimentation upon which the League for Innovation was founded. The award recognizes faculty, staff and administrators at member colleges who have designed and implemented a significant innovation.

The League for Innovation is an international organization dedicated to catalyzing the community college movement.