Open access articles help faculty deliver public health education online
Washington, D.C. – April 1, 2020 – The Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) announces two new open access collections of 15 papers published in its peer-reviewed journal Pedagogy in Health Promotion: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (PHP) to assist public health faculty and instructors adapting their face-to-face instruction to online formats.
As the COVID-19 pandemic forces many educational institutions to eliminate on-campus classes, faculty in universities and other educational settings are quickly adapting their curricula, teaching methods, and course assessments to synchronous and asynchronous delivery.
SOPHE’s special collections of previously published PHP articles describe e-learning best practices, approaches and tips for teaching public health-related knowledge and competencies.
The first curated collection titled, “Online Teaching for Academic Settings,” includes nine papers on developing and implementing online courses in academic settings and pedagogical techniques to enhance online learning. The articles describe course development implementation and evaluation, national quality assurance benchmarks in online teaching, service-learning, and how to engage students in the learning process by using online discussion boards and other methods.
A complementary collection titled, “Online Teaching for the Health Promotion Workforce,” features six articles on how online learning can help minimize or eliminate cost and travel barriers for public health workers. Several articles describe innovative approaches by the nation’s federally funded Public Health Training Centers to increase the capacity of public health trainers to teach in the distance learning environment. Articles also include e-learning approaches for busy healthcare workers and those used in various international countries.
“SOPHE and PHP are pleased to share these pedagogy resources for 90 days so that faculty and instructors can continue to deliver high-quality education to students and public health workers during this time when regular face-to-face instruction is prohibited,” says PHP Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Cheryl Merzel, New York University. “Online courses have proven beneficial for many years, provided that they have sound course objectives, measure and examine outcomes, build in student engagement, and include assessments that accurately measure learning.”
PHP is a standard benefit of SOPHE membership or can be ordered by libraries through SAGE Publications. The quarterly peer-reviewed journal advances pedagogy through contributions in areas such as curriculum and course/program design, assessment, and administration relevant to teaching and learning.
The journal content is relevant to instructors or trainers who provide continuing professional education, in the broad arena of health promotion and disease prevention. Individuals also can sign up on the PHP home page to receive free notices of the latest table of contents and OnlineFirst articles.
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