Fierce Education is recognizing those administrators, faculty, instructors, professors, and other higher education influencers who are boldly embracing innovative ways of teaching, technologies and methods to engage and reach students during these challenging times. They are the “Fierce Educators” who are rethinking higher education in this new blended learning world and we will be highlighting their successes and accomplishments.
FIERCE EDUCATOR:
Dr. Scott McNabb
AFFILIATION:
Professor, Department of Global Health, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta, GA.; Director, King Abdullah Fellowship Program, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health.
BEING FIERCE:
Dr. McNabb taught a multi-communication, online, eLearning course titled Transforming Public Health Surveillance at Emory University, Columbia University, and at the University of Georgia School of Public Health.
Dr. McNabb, serving as Principal Investigator, and his team created a new Africa CDC Institute for Workforce Development. Acknowledging the need to make training open and globally accessible, the new Africa CDC begun training the continent’s workforce on a large scale using a variety of multi-communication, asynchronous learning platforms.
After conducting an extensive literature review of e-Learning to improve workforce capacity, Africa CDC designed, developed, and deployed the Institute for Workforce Development (IWD) to provide high-level, in-service training for African health workers in field epidemiology, public health informatics, and laboratory science. Beyond a resource library of four courses, the Africa CDC IWD has also deployed a Clinical Community of Practice (CCoP) and connected the clinical community to weekly webinars, office hours, and a Telegram group chat to address the medical challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Technology-based solutions have been central to responding to the evolving needs of global heath training. Using various social media platforms such Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Telegram, the Africa CDC IWD presented scientific information and supported knowledge sharing. A variety of platforms were leveraged to support knowledge transfer including those for media hosting such as Canvas; management tools including Asana and Slack; business conferencing such as Zoom; and mobile applications including Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp.
Currently, he is working on new Elsevier book being titled, Global Health Security to Prevent the Next Pandemic. This book will provide a thoughtful, thorough, and balanced scientific review and analysis of the gaps and impediments to global public health security, in light of COVID-19, and other recent epidemics; provide a vision of an improved approach; and suggest actions to reach the vision.