LA Board of Regents

LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network

Building a Competitive Workforce: Career and Technical Education OER with Embedded Digital Skills

As part of my ongoing work to expand equitable access to high-quality learning materials and strengthen workforce readiness pathways, I am a contributing faculty author to LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network’s initiative, Building a Competitive Workforce: Career and Technical Education (CTE) Open Educational Resources (OER) with Embedded Digital Skills. This statewide effort supports Louisiana learners by developing openly licensed instructional resources that reduce financial barriers, improve course readiness, and align with the evolving digital and technical competencies required across healthcare and allied health professions.

Within this initiative, I am responsible for authoring and developing content in the Introduction to Pharmacology section. My work centers on creating clear, accurate, and workforce-relevant instructional materials that provide students with foundational pharmacology knowledge while also intentionally incorporating embedded digital skills that reflect modern expectations in clinical, laboratory, and health systems environments. This contribution directly supports career and technical education learners by strengthening prerequisite understanding for pharmacology-intensive pathways (e.g., nursing, public health, pre-health sciences, allied health, and clinical research training) and by reinforcing the applied competencies students need to succeed in digitally mediated educational and professional settings.

Scope of Work and Instructional Contributions

In the Introduction to Pharmacology section, my contributions emphasize:

• Foundational pharmacology concepts (core terminology, medication safety frameworks, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, dose response principles, routes of administration, adverse drug reactions, contraindications, and therapeutic decision-making).

• Clinical and public health relevance, including patient-centered considerations, medication adherence challenges, and real-world implications for health outcomes, particularly in populations experiencing disparities.

• Learner-centered structure, using scaffolded explanations, case-based application, and concise knowledge checks that support students transitioning into more advanced clinical reasoning.

Embedded Digital Skills and Workforce Alignment

A core feature of the LOUIS CTE OER initiative is the deliberate inclusion of digital skills as part of the instructional experience. In my section, I integrate digital skill-building opportunities that support career readiness and academic success, such as:

• Digital information literacy (interpreting drug information sources, distinguishing primary vs. secondary references, evaluating credibility, and understanding how evidence informs practice).

• Data and documentation readiness (introducing structured thinking around medication lists, dosing logic, safety checks, and terminology consistent with professional documentation expectations).

• Technology-enabled learning tasks (activities that reinforce navigating digital content, applying structured reasoning to cases, and using standard formats for communicating scientific and clinical information).

Impact and Significance

My participation in this statewide OER initiative strengthens my teaching portfolio in several ways that align with tenure and promotion criteria:

• Instructional innovation and access: OER development reduces cost barriers and expands access to quality materials, supporting student persistence and equity in CTE and STEM-aligned pathways.

• Workforce-focused teaching: By aligning core pharmacology instruction with digital skill development, the materials are responsive to the competencies expected in healthcare and scientific work environments.

• Scholarly teaching contribution: This work reflects pedagogical leadership through curriculum design, content development, and the creation of reusable learning objects that can be adopted and adapted across institutions.

Alignment with My Teaching Philosophy and Program Goals

This project directly supports my broader teaching philosophy: students learn best when foundational science concepts are taught in a way that is applied, relevant, and accessible, and when learning experiences explicitly build the competencies students need beyond the classroom. By contributing to LOUIS’s statewide OER initiative, I am advancing a scalable approach to teaching and learning that supports both student success and Louisiana’s workforce development goals, particularly in health and life science career pipelines

Textbook Drafted:  Introduction to Pharmacology (Expected Release Day: May 2026)

Material once published will be piloted into a course (2026-2027) school year