CAHS Continues Collaboration With Chinese University and Hospital

A relationship established by the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Allied Health Sciences (CAHS) with a university and hospital in China in 2016 continues to grow in 2017 and beyond. A group of faculty from Shandong University visited CAHS in early October, while a contingent from CAHS traveled to China at the end of the month.

Tina Whalen, EdD, dean of CAHS, established the educational partnership with Shandong University and United Family Healthcare (UFH) during a trip to China in March 2016. That visit led to a group of faculty from Shandong University traveling to CAHS in fall 2016 to learn more about facilitating online education.

Whalen also traveled to Beijing and Shanghai in late October 2017 with Sarah Couch, PhD, professor and vice chair of the Department of Rehabilitation, Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, (RENS) and Tom Herrmann, EdD, associate professor in RENS.

"This is a wonderful cultural and educational opportunity for our college and I am very proud to witness what I hope is the first of many more educational partnerships with our colleagues at the United Family Hospital System in China,” says Whalen.

Couch and Hermann coordinated a joint educational program with their colleagues at UFH called "The Resilient Person—Healthy Living in the Urban World” at a seminar in Beijing on Oct. 28. Couch presented a session titled "The Anti-Inflammatory Diet to Lower Chronic Disease Risk,” while Herrmann presented "Benefits and Risks of Increasing Activity Intensity.” 

Earlier in October, 22 faculty from Shandong University in Jinan, China, visited CAHS for two weeks of learning in and out of the classroom. Several classroom sessions were presented to the group, with a focus on online learning. The faculty also toured the College of Nursing and College of Pharmacy, along with the anatomy lab in the College of Medicine.  

"China’s experience in online learning is still very much in its early stages,” says Carolyn Stoll, an instructional designer in the Center for Educational Technology and Instructional Support in CAHS. "Instead of helping them to plan or design a fully online course, we’ve focused on helping them ‘flip’ their classroom, by putting lectures online and leaving classroom time for more active learning. That approach seemed to resonate with them and we had a lot of lively discussion about both the challenges and benefits of this approach.”