The Innovators in Education E-Learning Awards Ceremony was held on April 10.
Seventeen e-learning modules were presented at the event, which showcased UNMC faculty and student collaborations advancing e-learning, assessment and scholarship.
Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Dele Davies, M.D., who has spearheaded UNMC’s e-learning efforts, said he was pleased at the progress shown since the first e-learning event in 2014.
Charles Prober, M.D., senior associate dean for medical education at the Stanford School of Medicine, attended the event as an external advisor and said he was struck by the interprofessional aspect of the event.
“It’s very exciting to see groups sharing ideas across these domains and to see how the students have embraced a critical, central role in the development of these initiatives,” he said. “There’s nothing better than having learners figure out how teachers can do a better job for them and for the next generation of learners.”
UNMC College of Dentistry Dean Janet Guthmiller, D.D.S., Ph.D., attended in support of two groups of dental faculty and students who were presenting.
“I’m thrilled to see them participating, because this is not only enhancing our education, but it also translates to patient care,” she said. She added that the two dental modules – “Calculus Is Hard; Treating It Doesn’t Have to Be” and “Radiographic Diagnosis of Dental Caries” — were far-reaching, with educational, research and service implications.
Dental students Kiya Stack and Nick White, who worked on the calculus module, said the students on the team all learned a little more about periodontal therapy as they worked on the project.
“One of the main objectives for our e-module was an element of communication,” Stack said. “We wanted to focus on two avenues of communication. First, communication to our patients, being able to portray what the two different types of periodontal cleaning and maintenance are in a way that could be universally used in our clinic model; then, being able to incorporate it into the curriculum for our students. So the biggest challenge was being able to communicate both avenues effectively.”
A complete list of modules from the event, including detailed information on each module, is available here. To view the modules themselves, visit the E-Gallery.
UNMC is currently collaborating with the University of Nebraska at Omaha College of Education on developing e-learning modules to support high school science teachers in Nebraska and beyond. The next round of applications to create UNMC e-learning modules will be in the fall of 2018.