Spotlight: Brighton College Curriculum team take one!

This week we are proud and excited to spotlight another team member of Brighton College/The Paralegal Institute, Gilda Rada who has embraced our “Why” on Improving Employability Every Day! You may have read a bit about her on one of last month’s announcement, however, due to popular demand we wanted to share more about her role and share some great advice she has as well.

What is your role at Brighton College? I’m the Curriculum Program Manager at Brighton College, my role is overseeing design, authoring, development, and revision of courses for Brighton College and The Paralegal Institute. In addition, I maintain ongoing coordination with student services, SME’s, faculty and senior management, in the areas of course implementation, supplementation, modification and revision of curriculum content, with a focus on continuous improvement to the educational programs our institution offers. In the process of overseeing and coordinating the academic development of our curriculum, I also oversee the timely fulfillment and completion of various ongoing academic projects, which ultimately helps us leverage strategic organizational goals, thus yielding positive student outcomes.

What part of your job do you like the most? I love (not like) my job, and everything I do in the curriculum development process. In fact, effectively planning for our student’s academic development on a daily basis, makes me jump out of bed every morning. The reason behind my excitement, is the realization that what we do today as a department, can have long term effects in our students, our faculty, the institution, and the community.

Have you ever taken online college courses? I am constantly taking online courses for my academic and professional career. In fact, this month I will receive the (CHEP) Certified Higher Education Professional in Online Learning; this certification is one of the many online certifications our accrediting body offers to institutions in distance learning. In addition, I’ve been privileged to take virtual, hybrid and blended courses through various online platforms, which included Moodle, and Blackboard. In traditional higher- learning institutions, I’ve also been involved in the testing and launching of various distance educational platforms. It is certainly exciting to see new and improved adaptive learning platforms in distance education; this improvement allows institutions such as ours, to maintain a high level of student engagement and quantifiable student outcomes, thus allowing us to reach a student population which was almost impossible to reach in the past.

What advice would you give a student attending an online college? My advice to a student attending or planning to attend an online college in 2017 is very simple, “Get Ready to Meet a New YOU.” Today’s students have technology at their fingertips, but not all of them know how to use technology as an educational or a productivity tool, therefore, it is up to us (educators, curriculum developers, faculty, distance learning institutions) to provide the typical components of traditional learning, and adapt this model into a student-centered learning environment. In this new model of distance and adaptive learning, students are capable to work at varying paces, with content created with their abilities in mind, develop greater responsibility towards their own learning, and find a work-life-balance, which they may not be able to find in the traditional model of learning.

Share one of your favorite benefits of why students should attend Brighton College? One of my favorite benefits, which I know students derive when they join Brighton College is in our mission statement, and this is personalization. At Brighton College, we strive to be readily available to engage with students, their needs and circumstances, and yes, academics is at the top of our lists, but we understand first and foremost, that we must be present in our student’s life, like never before, and convey this message every time we interact with them. In fact, when our students experience a high level of engagement through non-traditional interaction, they feel confident in their academic and career growth, and by default we help them solidify the future with certainty in a new era of distance learning.

Be sure to check back weekly as we will continue to spotlight more members of our team. Once again, please join us in welcoming Gilda.