Margaret Kilduff

I have worked in higher education in both administrative and academic roles for more than 35 years. My research interests are the improvement of health system quality and health geography. For the past 20 years, I have taught online courses in the areas of health system and healthcare data science, administration/management, and policy. The profile photo is by R.C. Wicaksono and was downloaded from Unsplash. My Coursera courses have a format and philosophy a little different from most Coursera courses. Most Coursera courses present required course content primarily using video lecture presentations. My courses present required course content using readings in which there are links to free optional content external to the course. My educational philosophy is that: 1) learners should have direct relationship with the course content to be learned; and 2) learners should be able to establish their own individual content learning paths. A reading, in my opinion, in an online course provides a more direct relationship between the learner and the content than does an online video lecture presentation. With an online reading, the learner focuses on the content. With an online video lecture presentation, the learner often focuses on the video lecturer. The readings also allow the use of links to free optional content external to the course. Such links allows learners to establish their own individual content learning paths and customize their learning experience. Some of the links are to webpages and some are to professionally produced videos (e.g., from the Smithsonian, National Archives). The links make full use of the fact that the course is delivered online Required content is presented in my courses as a series of questions and answers - the Socratic Method - whenever possible. The philosophy behind the use of this method is that this is a more effective - and much more interesting - way for a learner to master content. There is a project in each course which requires learners to synthesize course material to create something (e.g., learners create their own healthcare organization and then create a poster to tell their learner colleagues about their healthcare organization). The philosophy behind this project is that more learning occurs - and learning is more fun - if a learner builds/creates something from the course content (rather than just being tested on the content) and shows this built/created artifact to others.