TEACHING AN INTERDISCIPLINARY DISTANCE EDUCATION GERONTOLOGY COURSE: BENEFITS OF DIVERSITY

Abstract

This article derives from the experience of teaching an asynchronous web-based course, Communicating with Older Persons with Alzheimer's Disease, taught by a multidisciplinary team of three faculty. The students also were multidisciplinary with diverse cultural and educational backgrounds and varied professional experience with older adults. Our aim in this paper is to demonstrate how the course was improved by the diversity of the faculty and students. We consider the students' diverse educational backgrounds, professional experience, personal experiences, and finally, cultural backgrounds. The class discussions and interactions were strengthened by the exchange of knowledge and varied perspectives applied to the course materials as each student applied his or her own educational background and professional and personal experiences to the various topics and readings discussed throughout the course. We demonstrate how the diversity in terms of each of these characteristics enhanced the class discussions by providing examples from the students' actual course postings.