ΒιΆΉΣ°ΤΊ

Public Health Professor Wins Blackboard Exemplary Course Award

Bethany Lanese, assistant professor of health policy and management in the College of Public Health at ΒιΆΉΣ°ΤΊ, has been awarded the 2016-2017 Blackboard ExemplaryBethany Lanese, assistant professor of health policy and management in the College of Public Health, has been awarded the 2016-2017 Blackboard Exemplary Course Program Award. Course Program Award for her course Foundations of Effective Public Health Leadership.

The biannual award program, hosted by Blackboard, the learning management system, used at ΒιΆΉΣ°ΤΊ State for teaching, learning and student engagement, recognizes online courses that have excelled in four areas: Course Design, Interaction and Collaboration, Assessment and Learner Support.

Lanese previously won the award in 2015 for the course, Health Care Systems.

β€œWhen I won the first time, I wasn’t designing the course with the rubric in mind,” Lanese says, β€œSo I went back through to make sure the assignments had authentic assessments and allowed for a certain level of interaction between students with things like peer review, which it did. Other suggestions from the reviewers were to include information about where to find rubrics and to encourage more discussion beyond the minimum requirements.”

Online courses that have great elements of instructional design, a high level of engagement through student interaction and collaboration and a high quality of students’ assessments and availability of resources are considered for the award.

β€œFor the second course, right from the start I knew I wanted to put it up for the award,” Lanese says. β€œIt was easier to make the assignments reach a certain standard at that point.”

Courses are first self-reviewed by the instructor with a rubric that divvies up the four core areas and ranks strengths in these areas. Then, the course is peer-reviewed to analyze elements of those same course elements.

Lanese holds a doctorate in political science from Wayne State University and taught at Eastern Michigan University before venturing into the healthcare field.

β€œFor about five years, I was in healthcare management and really wanted to get back into academia,” Lanese says. β€œI saw an opening in public health at ΒιΆΉΣ°ΤΊ State and thought it was a perfect mix between my new healthcare background mixed with public policy and administration.”

Lanese’s course is offered in the Master of Public Health Program, of which she is the online coordinator.

β€œA lot of our students come from a nursing background or work in a public health agency and then want to advance their careers,” Lanese says. β€œWe definitely have a vast majority of students who are already in careers and choose to do the program online.”

Ken Slenkovich, assistant dean of the College of Public Health at ΒιΆΉΣ°ΤΊ State, also won the award in 2015 for the course, Sex: A Wicked Health Problem.

β€œIn the College of Public Health, we work very closely with the Office of Continuing and Distance Education, and they help us through the process of creating an online course,” Lanese says.

POSTED: Wednesday, April 12, 2017 02:12 PM
Updated: Saturday, December 3, 2022 01:02 AM
WRITTEN BY:
Carly Evans

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