NECC Faculty Recognized for Designing Online Courses
Two Northern Essex Community College faculty members, Scott Joubert of Oxford, and Isabelle Gagne of Holliston, are the recipients of the 2016 Massachusetts Colleges Online (MCO) Course of Distinction (COD) Award given to state faculty who develop and teach innovative online and blended courses that are representative of the best uses of eLearning instructional tools to enhance student success.
The awards were presented during MCO’s 11th annual conference on elearning “Sharing Best Practices” at Greenfield Community College, which was held in June. MCO is a consortium of the 15 community colleges and 9 state colleges of Massachusetts. The institutions have joined to share their convenient and flexible online courses and programs with students throughout the state and beyond.
For Gagne, this was her second COD Award. She earned the honor in 2010 for her “Developmental Psychology” course. This year she was recognized for her online “Introduction to Psychology” course which has a streamlined design that helps students easily navigate the course and focus on coursework. She authored engaging lessons with embedded questions to prompt recall of concepts. Media-based interactions assess students’ high level thinking skills. Integration of videos and open educational resources (OER) help students expand and retain knowledge all the while meeting accessibility standards. Its current use of online teaching practices helps students to learn and succeed. This online course is being offered this fall.
For 15 years Gagne has been teaching psychology at NECC. For the last eight years she has worked as a full-time psychology professor. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Montreal and a master’s from the University of Sherbrooke.
Joubert, a professor in Northern Essex’s Criminal Justice Program, teaches a “Criminal Law” class online that was lauded for being “exemplary in both its use of OER and consistent course design”. Joubert blends a mix of current, rich instructional materials making the course both engaging and socially relevant. Innovative content keeps students engaged because it’s delivered through pop-culture related material. Through online activities, students are required to critically evaluate, debate, and criticize what they are learning as it applies to the legal process, statutory and case law precedent.
He brings real world experience to his students having worked as a correctional officer for the Worcester County Sheriff’s Department for 15 years. He holds an associate degree from Quinsigamond Community College (QCC) and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Worcester State College, a Master’s in Criminal Justice from Boston University and is enrolled in a Master’s in History program at Worcester State University.
Northern Essex offers dozens of online courses, web enhanced courses, and hybrid courses each semester. More than 20 degree and certificates are now offered exclusively online or 80* online. These programs include business management, criminal justice, liberal arts, computer and information sciences, and sleep technology.
Here are NECC’s online course and program offerings.