Melba Acevedo, NECC director, Instructional Technology and Online Learning, with MCO Course of Distinction winner Pat Demers and Sue Tashjian, NECC’s coordinator of Instructional Technology .

Patricia Demers, an adjunct health care faculty member at Northern Essex Community College, recently received the Massachusetts Colleges Online (MCO) Course of Distinction Award (COD) for her hybrid course “Public Health Preparedness”.

The COD Award is presented to state faculty who develop and teach innovative online and hybrid courses that represent the creative use of eLearning instructional tools to enhance teaching and promote student success.

The awards were presented during MCO’s 14th annual conference on eLearning titled “Sharing Best Practices” held at Fitchburg State University in June. MCO is a collaborative of 24 public state higher education institutions involved in the design, delivery, management, and assessment of online, blended, and other technology-mediated learning formats.

Demers, a retired assistant dean of health professions at NECC, who is now teaching part-time, was praised for her use of Open Educational Resources (OER) which are free government resources, articles instructor-created lecture notes, presentations and videos – giving students a wide variety of instructional materials that address different learning styles.

“Taking full advantage of the flipped classroom model, students prepare for class by identifying three new things learned from readings, defining two specific terms, and listing one question about a new topic. The instructor (Demers) can focus class presentations on areas requiring clarification. This sets the tone for shared responsibility between the students and faculty,” the judges wrote.

A requirement for Northern Essex’s Associate Degree Program in Public Health, the Public Health Preparedness course introduces the student to the basic principles and framework of national and public health preparedness including responsibilities, functions and tasks. Topics include phases of emergency management, training, response and recovery at national, state, and local levels. This three-credit course will be offered again in the spring of 2020.

NECC offers an associate degree in public health and a certificate in community health worker.

Northern Essex offers dozens of online courses, web-enhanced courses, and hybrid courses each semester. Nineteen programs are available online or 80% online. These include business management, computer & information sciences: information technology, criminal justice, liberal arts, and more.

Here are NECC’s online course programs and offerings