Journal Club 3: Increasing Sense of Community in Higher Education Nutrition Courses Using Technology

Sense of community is integral in education and can affect achievement, interactivity and retention. This session will explore factors that across face-to-face, blended and online formats. Technology is one factor that can have significant impact and video conferencing, polling software, video/audio enabled discussion platform and screen capture software will be discussed. Application to nutrition practice and future research will be noted.

Mindy Haar, PhD, RDN, CDN, FAND, earned her M.S. in Nutrition Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a PhD in health sciences from University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Her clinical career has focused on outpatient nutrition counseling in hospitals, doctors’ offices and her own private.practice. Since 1996, Dr. Haar has been involved in higher education and presently at New York Institute of Technology she serves as Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Affairs, School of Health Professions, and as director of the Department of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences which includes an all online MS in Clinical Nutrition. Her research has focused on factors including technology that affect perception of community and interactivity in health science coursework and she has written and presented as well on health and nutrition issues across the life cycle.