Group projects – online especially – have been an interest of mine for a long time. In a way, group projects are spaces for students to learn from each other, collaborate, and form relationships. If you have never heard about Sugata Mitra and his Hole-in-the-Wall project – old news, I know! – he takes it even further saying that kids…

Research shows that online students appreciate a strong instructor presence. Online instructors who leave regular digital footprints in their classes show that they are actively engaged and committed to supporting student success. In addition to discussion boards and assignment feedback, course announcements provide an excellent opportunity for instructors to maximize their online presence while also sharing important course information. Personalize…

  Megan Landry, BSN, MHA, and former Program Director for the Graduate Programs in Health Informatics, was a speaker on a healthcare panel during Maine Startup and Create Week on June 23, at Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine. The panel focused on an important aspect of health informatics in today’s healthcare environment: how the health informatics industry is embracing…

One of my favorite features on my iPhone is the Maps App. I lost my beloved DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer several moves (and states) ago. I don’t have a GPS in my car. I’ve often found myself lost in many an unfamiliar part of a town when traveling for work or even pleasure. There is something very comforting in saying,…

Student support specialists are intrinsic to the success of our students. The other day I sat on the Maine coast, not too far from the UNE campus, and watched a tall ship come into port. As usual, many other boats greeted the tall ship and escorted it into the harbor. Complete with a lighthouse, this nautical scene made me think…

UNE Online graduate wins award of excellence Karen Aldworth, recent UNE MSEd: CTE graduate, was nominated for and won the Illinois Association for Career and Technical Education (IACTE) New Teacher of the Year award and represented Illinois at the Region III Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) conference on June 15-17th, 2016. Karen is a Health Science / Certified…

Back in March, my colleague Olga wrote about authentic assessment. In her post, she noted “you scaffold the assignments (activities) and put together course materials necessary to help students do their best in achieving the desired result.” In this Vision post, we’ll take a look at how scaffolding and formative assessment can foster student success throughout your courses. Together, scaffolding and…

Regardless of the Learning Management System your institution uses, many of the recognizable names in this crowded field have various modes for authoring and viewing that can be turned on or off by a faculty or staff role to see, and edit, the course in different ways. The ability to put on a different set of eyes and view your course…

At UNE Online, our faculty and staff have adopted a practitioner-scholar model that bridges the gap between academia and the real world, blending scholarly research with practical application to solve complex problems in their professions. It is because of this philosophy that Monique Roy, Assistant Program Manager for the Graduate Programs in Education, will be speaking at the upcoming Maine…

This is for instructors and students alike. For those of you who are instructing, this could come in handy as a resource for any students who are claiming they can’t find the feedback you know you provided for their assignment. As a first step in addressing that issue, consider sending the student to this post. For students…well, of course this…

Each spring, the College of Graduate and Professional Studies holds a Hooding ceremony to honor doctoral and master’s graduates and celebrate the successful completion of their studies. The Hooding ceremony is not meant to replace the university-wide commencement. Rather, it is a special time to come together to meet your fellow students, Faculty, Program Managers and Student Support Specialists for…

Final projects make or break a course. A good final project incorporates everything the student has learned in the course. It lends structure and meaning to the assignments that precede it, and it offers the student a chance to demonstrate mastery of course material in a way that is authentic to the subject matter. In an introductory nutrition course, for…

In past posts, we have discussed how to create rubrics, why we use rubrics at UNE, and how to use rubrics in Blackboard. This particular post will focus on the different types of rubrics one may encounter and what they look like. There are three main types of rubrics: holistic, analytic, and a love child of the two that we’ll…

UNE Online has a newly redesigned online Physics I course, 100% online, with fresh, custom-developed content. The new class has been designed to be especially relevant to students in the health professions. Geared toward health professions UNE’s new online physics course takes its examples from real life, and incorporates elements of how health science professionals actually use physics in their…

I’d wager that most people reading this blog have some important documents and files stored on their computers and phones. I’d also be willing to bet that less than half of those people have backed up their devices. I don’t blame them – backups are really, really boring. But, in this case, the opposite of boring is misery, because losing all…

CLEAR’s RIAs Michigan State’s Center for Language Education And Research (CLEAR) has created a number of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) that can be used across a variety of disciplines. Because CLEAR is funded by a US Department of Education grant, the applications are free to use. Furthermore, they do not include annoying advertisements. As a world language instructor, I have used a…

Katy Krings is in her final semester of the MPH program and is an excellent example of how online education can be used as a powerful tool to reach qualified individuals who wouldn’t otherwise have access to higher education. Originally from Wisconsin, Katy now lives and works as a public health nurse in rural Southwest Alaska. In fact, the area in which Katy…

A few months ago, my teenaged son came home from seeing a movie with a friend. I cheerfully asked, “How was the movie?” He responded, “Good.” I shook my head and sighed. “Let me rephrase,” I said. He rolled his eyes at me. “Tell me about the movie!” He smirked. “I already did. It was good.” I felt thwarted by…

The University of New England’s College of Graduate and Professional Studies is excited to announce the opening of a new Master of Science in Applied Nutrition online. The mission of the Master of Science in Applied Nutrition is to prepare individuals for leadership roles in the nutrition field, to advance knowledge and expand skills that promote excellence and innovation in…

Yesterday, the entire Instructional Design team in CGPS put on a (rather successful, by our estimation) webinar on assuring quality in online courses. We recorded the webinar for the faculty, administrators and staff who could not make it to the live broadcast. That recording is below: (Note: The first 26 minutes are of the webinar, with one or two questions…

In its 13th year, the Global Health & Innovation Conference (GHIC), presented by Unite for Sight will take place this weekend at Yale University in New Haven, CT. GHIC is the world’s leading and largest global health conference as well as the largest social entrepreneurship conference, with 2,200 professionals and students from all over the country and globe. Stop by…

In your courses, you are often required to locate an assigned reading using the UNE Library website. For advanced searches, it’s recommended that you use the Full Text Journals page. However, this tool, Summon, which is embedded right on the main Library page, has saved me a ton of time! Not only does it make it easy to plug in…

While I won’t pretend that I am among the generation that watched and enjoyed MacGyver during the mid 80s and early 90’s, the concept of “MacGyvering” is one that I feel transcends generations. It reflects the ability to take whatever you have on hand, however impractical it may be, and accomplish what needs to be done. Secret agents like Angus…

We have been talking on and off about essential questions with Chris. Just the other day, because I am facilitating an online course about online course development (yup, I am!), a participant in the course submitted a syllabus with an essential question in it, and this was such a joyous moment that I had to capitalize on it and spread…