September 12, 2013

Jean MacFadyen, PhD will encourage cross-global innovation in her fall Graduate Nursing course, “Innovation in Advanced Nursing Practice: Theory and Application.” The course was chosen to be taught as a Global Classroom, a newly-created program that engages Drexel students with students at one of Drexel University’s partner universities abroad through a range of online technologies. The Office of International Programs’ pilot round of the program had six successful Global Classrooms that encouraged collaborative thinking with partners in China, India, Israel and Italy.

MacFadyen is teaching this course with international partner Terry Young, a professor of healthcare systems at the School for Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics at Brunel University in London, United Kingdom. The colleagues first met during an academic trip to London and Prague in May 2013.

“The need for innovation in health care is not isolated to the United States,” MacFadyen wrote in her Global Classroom application. Young has developed a consortium of four universities with industry connections, a group aiming to transform the medical device sector.

Young will interact with the Drexel students via Skype discussions to inform and challenge the students’ thinking on a deeper level.

“Follow-up discussion boards will reinforce the avant-garde thinking, encouraging students to remove their cultural blinders and to pursue and understanding of viewpoints which may be different than their own. Sometimes answers can be found in other countries...already discovered!” MacFadyen said.

MacFadyen was also given a $1,000 stipend to run the course and to fund a “face-to-face” component in which she can work with Drexel University’s Study Abroad Office to invite partners to visit Drexel in Philadelphia.