Teresa Chan, Academic Director of Columbia University’s M.S. in Insurance Management program, recently joined an Unqork panel to discuss the intersections of technology, education and digital tools.
Unqork is a no-code enterprise application platform that helps large companies build, deploy, and manage complex applications such as learning management systems. Chan, alongside other professionals, shared their perspectives on technology as a tool for education and enablement. This article explores some of Chan’s reflections through the lens of the M.S. in Insurance Management program.
COVID 19 has brought with it a new work from home environment and a desire for professional development. With our schedules rewired to balance multiple tasks of home and work, the fundamental self-paced nature of the M.S. in Insurance Management program is one well ahead of its time. The initial design of the program was intended to be online and asynchronous to give students the flexibility to learn on their own time, shared Chan.
We’re really focused on creating a student centered program that provides relevant, applicable and forecasted learning meant to provide the skills to feed both current and future industry related experiences. Students should gain new information otherwise intangible to them in their current work.
We want to make sure that what our students are learning is real, so we’re aiming to download the 30-40 years of industry expertise that each of our faculty of scholar professionals come with, to each of these students.
Teresa Chan, Academic Director of M.S. in Insurance Management Program
The use of technology enables education because all of this information can now be so readily available to everyone in their own time. As a self paced and online program, the incorporation of the right technology is critical. We’ve chosen our learning management system by identifying software that provides ease and accessible interactivity for the user along with metrics to monitor engagement. It is constructed to maintain an engaged and dynamic learning community.
The demand for asynchronous flexibility will increase because we’re all finding that we can actually function very well outside of the office. At some point, we’ll be able to embrace more of this self paced learning.
Teresa Chan, Academic Director of M.S. in Insurance Management Program
Chan speaks in greater detail about student engagement, technology and metrics used to gauge success on the panel. To view the entire discussion, click here.