UMassOnline Announces New, Fully-Online, Master’s in Public Policy Program
Posted on July 14, 2010 by Jennifer Brady | Leave a Comment
In case you missed the recent news release, UMassOnline announced that a fully-online Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) program developed by UMass Dartmouth has been added to our growing portfolio of online offerings. Modeled after UMass Dartmouth’s long-established on-campus Master’s in Public Policy program from its School of Education, Public Policy and Civic Engagement, the online program was developed, and will be taught, by the same faculty who provide on-campus instruction.
The full text of our release provides many details about this new program. But two paragraphs in particular may be of utmost interest to learners thinking about a career in public policy or who are currently in the field and wish to advance their career:
The program was designed for individuals seeking employment in municipal, state, or federal government, non-profit organizations and business, trade, or labor associations. The fully-online MPP program has been tailored for the current generation of working public policy professionals as well as the next generation of public policy leaders. More specifically, the online program is expected to draw learners from the same two primary student groups that have traditionally enrolled in the on-campus program: working professionals interested in career advancement, professional development, or a career change. It is also meant to attract recent college graduates who want to continue their education at the graduate level in preparation for a career in the field of public policy.
For MPP students, UMass Dartmouth’s Department of Public Policy offers students the opportunity to work with and learn from a community of scholars that are actively engaged in the world of public policy through the work of the Center for Policy Analysis, a nationally recognized multidisciplinary research unit that works closely with government agencies, other clients, and through the individual scholarship and civic engagement of each of the department’s core and affiliated faculty members. Moreover, the program reflects UMass Dartmouth’s overarching commitment to volunteerism, service-learning and civic engagement for which the university has twice been honored by being named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The honor is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive in this category.
Learn more about the fully-online Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) program, vist the UMassOnline website.
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What is Learning Design?
Posted on June 30, 2010 by James Dalziel | 1 Comment
The UMassOnline team welcomes Professor James Dalziel, Director, Macquarie ELearning Centre of Excellence (MELCOE) Macquarie University Sydney, NSW Australia as a guest blogger and to the extended UMassOnline community for an event featuring Professor Dalziel on July 8th. For those local to UMassOnline or planning to be in the area, please join us Thursday, July 8th at 9:30 at the Cermax Conference Center in Marlborough MA. Click to learn more about this event and reserve your seat. This is a great opportunity to explore, with your peers, learning design, identity management, technical standards and open community, content and software in education.
My academic career started with teaching introductory psychology classes to groups of 20 students. Despite all the preparation and background research I did on the topic of the week, and the class questions I used to try to foster discussion, I found that students sometimes didn’t have much to say. Despite my good intentions, discussion was infrequent, and I would lapse into “mini-lectures” to fill up the silence. After many unsuccessful attempts at fostering discussion, I assumed that most of my students weren’t interested in the topic or didn’t like class discussion, and there wasn’t much I could do about it.
I talked with a colleague in the university’s central teaching support group about my situation, and he suggested I try a technique for fostering more class discussion. Instead of me standing up the front asking questions of the whole group, he suggested I give students an important question to think about on their own for a while and make some notes, then get students into pairs to talk about the question, and then later get each pair to join another pair to discuss the question as a group of four. After this, I could try discussion with the whole group.
It sounded like a good idea in theory to me, but I was doubtful that it would work with my group of students given my experience of them so far. To be honest, I thought I just had a “dud” group of students.
So in the next class I explained to the students what we were going to do, and then gave it a try. They seemed fine with thinking about the question on their own, then there were some logistical arrangements when we came to set up the pairs, but with a little patience they got into pairs and a few triplets, and then there was embarrassed silence. As the seconds passed I had a creeping feeling of terror - and I was about to interrupt and start lecturing when a few groups started talking, and then a few more, and pretty quickly every group was talking. As I watched the students discuss in pairs and later in groups of four, I noticed several students where I would have bet any money that they would not talk, and yet here they were talking animatedly about the topic - not what they did on the weekend - but the topic! Read more…
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Test, Test, Test – Is It That Important?
Posted on June 24, 2010 by Li Feng | 3 Comments
Any student growing up in China understands the importance of tests. Starting from an early age, students are judged solely by how high they score in tests, especially in standardized tests. They are ranked after each test: mid-term, final, or even unit test. This experience of being “enslaved” by test scores continues until they graduate from high school. At that time, they face the biggest test of their life – the college entrance exam, or Gao Kao in Chinese. This one test determines whether a student will be able to go to college, which determines the destiny of the student. Due to limited higher education resources, the competition is extremely severe, which results in teachers teaching to the test and students studying to the test for years to prepare for Gao Kao. Test scores are all they care about.
The Chinese educational system is basically a sink-or-swim system that produces good test takers. As a result, many students who choose to study in American universities experience a “cultural shock.” The expectations and learning experience, which are reflected in face-to-face and online classrooms, in American universities are completely different. In both online and face-to-face classes, students are expected to actively participate in class activities, discussions, individual or group projects, etc. Test taking is only a small component of the whole learning experience. More importantly, in many courses, face-to-face or online, final grades are not the synonym of final exam scores. This is an important concept for a student from China to understand. In most cases, final grades derive from a comprehensive grading scheme, including class participation (sometime also includes attendance), assignments, assessments, projects, exams, and so on. Among all these elements, final exam or mid-term exam together may only account for 30 percent of the final grade. In this sense, studying for the test is not a successful learning strategy in American universities. Students need to maintain excellent performance throughout the whole course in every aspect in order to obtain an excellent academic record. Read more…
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From Ideas to Implementation: Getting There in a Distributed Community
Posted on June 7, 2010 by Patrick.Masson | 1 Comment
One of the fantastic benefits of my new position at UMassOnline, is the ability to attend the great variety of conferences, presentations, meetings and discussions going on throughout the University of Massachusetts, within the State, and among our peers throughout higher education. Looking forward into the upcoming academic year (and the summer), it’s exciting to see all sorts of interesting folks presenting on all sorts of interesting things. These events, not only allow me (the new guy) to learn about what is happening on campuses and in courses regarding new and innovative academic technologies, as well as online teaching and learning, but also introduce me to the creative and motivated folks that are making it happen.
As luck would have it my starting date hit just at the right time to catch just such an event, UMass Boston’s Ed Tech Conference, “Transforming Teaching and Learning with Technology.” The conference was a great introduction to not only the UMass Boston campus (it was a beautiful day, and the conference–held atop the Healey Library on the 11th floor–looked out across the Boston waterfront and harbor, cool!), but also the various areas of interest of faculty incorporating technology into the delivery of their online courses. In addition, along with the local Boston faculty, attendees included a variety of folks (faculty, instructional designers, etc.) from not only the UMass campuses (Amherst, Dartmouth, Lowell and Worcester) but other colleges and universities across the region. Read more…
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