Dr. Sam Coppoletti, PT, DPT, hosts a three-part series to help PTA faculty get the most out of PhysioU. Each session covers different tools and skills for classroom, lab, and clinical education.

Featured Speaker: Sam Coppoletti, PT, DPT

Dr. Coppoletti is a veteran PTA educator with a diverse clinical and academic background. He has earned degrees from Northern Illinois University, the University of Iowa, and Shenandoah University. His career includes work as a PTA, rural hospital director, pediatric cooperative therapist, and MPT faculty at Southwest Baptist University. He also led the Shawnee State PTA Program for eight years, served a decade at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College, and directed the Hocking College PTA Program. Dr. Coppoletti has served on the Ohio PT Licensure Board, the OPTA Ethics Committee, and as a consultant to NPTE Final Frontier. He is part of an international team teaching in Cameroon’s first PT bachelor’s program and currently teaches for Lake Superior College’s PTA Military Bridge Program.

00:00 PhysioU Web Interface Training Webinar

08:31 PhysioU Platform Feature Overview

17:26 PhysioU Platform Features Discussion

21:19 PhysioU Educational Apps Updates

Helpful Links: Complimentary Educator access | Educator resources | Set up a Demo

How to Get the Most From PhysioU’s New Web Interface in Your PTA Program

The best educational technology is not the one with the most features but the one that actually fits into your workflow, something we have heard echoed across countless faculty meetings. That is a fair test for any digital tool in a PTA program, where faculty are already balancing labs, lectures, and assessments. So what does it look like when a redesigned interface is built to pass it?

In Session 3 of our PTA Faculty Success Series, Dr. Sam Coppoletti, PT, DPT, PhysioU PTA Education Lead, and Dr. James Syms walked us through the redesigned PhysioU web interface, whether you are teaching first-year students range of motion or preparing second-years for acute care. They covered everything from a single settings change to the educator dashboard. The good news is that the habits they described build on each other, so you can start with one and add more over time.

Finding Your Way: The New Navigation and PTA Settings

Start with what you see when you log in. The new web interface moves primary navigation from the top of the screen to a left-side panel, which makes for a cleaner and more intuitive experience. Your settings sit at the bottom left, and that is where many educators miss a critical step.

By default, PhysioU displays content for physical therapists, so you need to change your profession setting to “PT Assistant” to see the PTA-specific cases and simulations. That single adjustment reveals approximately 40 to 50 revised cases designed for PTA education, complete with educator keys and downloadable student reports. Once you have made the switch, the catalog is straightforward to work with:

• Apps are organized alphabetically rather than by category.
• You can filter by type, toggling between all apps, learning simulations only, or main applications.
• Category filters narrow the catalog to musculoskeletal, cardiopulmonary, or neurological content.

These options work whether you are planning a single lab session or mapping an entire semester. PhysioU also remembers your recent apps, so you can return to frequently used content without rebuilding your workflow each time. That small convenience adds up when you are moving quickly from one lab topic to the next.

Bookmarks and Links: Turning Content Discovery Into Content Delivery

Once you can find the right apps, “bookmarks” help you gather them. Think of bookmarks as your personal curriculum curation tool: you can collect relevant apps into themed collections and share them with students by email or by copying a URL into your learning management system. Dr. Coppoletti demonstrated this by building a study guide for an upcoming lab practical, compiling a collection of orthopedic apps and sharing the whole package in seconds.

The approach is flexible, because you can create collections for different courses, skill levels, or learning objectives. A first-year student might receive a collection focused on foundational skills like manual muscle testing and goniometry, while second-years get curated acute care simulations. Bookmarks are one way to share content, and PhysioU also lets you place app links directly into your course documents. Dr. Coppoletti showed how to copy app links and thumbnails into syllabi, lab handouts, and assignment sheets, and the steps are short:

• Find the app you want to assign and click the share icon.
• Copy the title with link, then paste it wherever you need it.
• Copy the thumbnail image as well if you want a visual reference.

Engagement and Assessment: Daily Quizzes, Learning Boosts, and the Educator Dashboard

The new interface also introduces a “quiz question of the day,” which generates a question based on whichever app a student last accessed. That creates a low-stakes but consistent form of retrieval practice, and students can build win streaks, track their performance, and compete informally with classmates. Dr. Coppoletti mentioned getting a win streak of four during the demo and said he will sometimes ask students to see who earns the prize for the week. It is a small feature, but it draws on retrieval practice and gamification to keep students engaged between formal assignments.

“Learning boosts,” meanwhile, work as scaffolded preparation for more complex simulations. The acute care app, for instance, begins with focused learning boosts on lines and tubes, bracing, and equipment identification, typically a 20-minute commitment, before students move on to full patient simulations. Dr. Coppoletti recommends setting clear expectations, such as telling students, “You can do it twice, and I need to have a score of at least 75%.” That staged approach builds confidence and competence before students face the cognitive demands of clinical decision-making.

On the educator side, the “educator dashboard” lets you create cohorts, assign specific cases or modules, set due dates, and download score reports for each student. You can upload those reports directly into your learning management system, which connects PhysioU activities to your grade book. The educator keys that come with each simulation deserve special attention, because they are instructor-only resources showing the correct answers, the rationale behind them, the embedded critical thinking questions, and the structure of each module. Dr. Syms pointed out that students do not see those answers while you get a preview, so you know exactly what learning is happening inside each simulation and can lead a meaningful debrief afterward.

Graded Skill Exposure, CAPTE Mapping, and What Is Coming Next

This ease of integration supports a principle that both Dr. Coppoletti and Dr. Syms emphasized throughout the session, which is graded skill exposure. Start students with fundamental apps early in the program, then layer in more complex content as they progress. By the time they reach clinical rotations, they have built technical competence and clinical reasoning through repeated, scaffolded exposure. A typical sequence looks like this:

• Early in the program: range of motion, manual muscle testing, and physical agents.
• As students progress: gait training and assistive devices.
• Later in the program: the full acute care simulations.

PhysioU also maps directly to CAPTE accreditation standards, with a comprehensive reference document in the “Learning Center.” This alphabetized list shows which PhysioU content aligns with specific accreditation requirements, which makes it easier to document your curriculum and demonstrate compliance during site visits. The “Learning Center” also offers guided tours of every major feature discussed in the webinar, so it is a helpful starting point for colleagues who are new to PhysioU.

The webinar also offered a glimpse into the development pipeline, all informed by educator feedback and evolving best practices in rehabilitation education. For PTA programs, that means new content for therapeutic exercise, taping, biomechanics, and gait, with occupational therapy content on the way as well. Several apps are in the works:

• A therapeutic exercise app with over 900 videos that demonstrate proper technique and common errors.
• An updated taping app with multi-angle shots and 360-degree views.
• A human movement and biomechanics app that visualizes forces and moment arms during functional movements.
• Expanded content for gait and running analysis.
• For our occupational therapy colleagues, apps on feeding and eating development and on sensory integration, developed in partnership with the STAR Institute.

The therapeutic exercise app is particularly ambitious, since showing common errors alongside proper technique is exactly the kind of visual learning that helps students develop clinical eyes before they ever walk into a treatment room. The sensory integration app represents a significant leap forward in how these complex concepts can be taught in a digital format. These apps are still in development, but they show the direction PhysioU is heading as educators share what they need.

Making It Work for Your Program

The one moment that has stayed with us from the webinar is Dr. Syms’s reminder of how much time this approach saves over the long term: “Next year, call that syllabus back up and just tweak it. You don’t need a new wheel, just tighten the spokes.” Once you have built your bookmark collections, created your assignment sequences, and integrated PhysioU into your course structure, the system works for you year after year with only minor adjustments. Whether you are a solo faculty member managing multiple courses or part of a larger team coordinating across instructors, PhysioU offers flexibility without complexity.

The good news is that you do not have to adopt everything at once. Dr. Coppoletti and Dr. Syms showed changes that are small enough to start with this week and that build on one another. Here are three places to begin:

• Change your profession setting to “PT Assistant” so the PTA cases and simulations appear.
• Build a bookmark collection for your next lab practical and share the link with students.
• Copy an app title and link into your syllabus or a lab handout.

The resources mentioned in the webinar can help as you get going. Educator keys and downloadable student reports come with the PTA cases, the CAPTE reference document and guided tours live in the “Learning Center,” and score reports can be uploaded to your learning management system. Together, they let you build on what PhysioU already provides rather than starting from scratch.

Watch the full recording to see the new web interface in action, claim Complimentary Educator access to explore it yourself, or set up a demo with our PhysioU PTA Education Lead to plan where to start in your program. One settings change and one bookmark collection are enough to begin.