Ph.D. Shelley C. Kurland

Shelley Kurland serves as the inaugural Dean of Virtual Campus at the County College of Morris in Randolph, New Jersey. She has been an educator since 1999 and involved in distance education since 2003. Dr. Kurland’s areas of expertise and interests are in distance education, active learning, faculty learning, and the use of digital technologies with pedagogical considerations. She uses the question, “Is this the best for the student?” as the compass for her professional work.

Dr. Kurland’s scholarly activities involve active contributions through professional presentations in the areas of teaching and learning in all delivery methods. As part of her action research dissertation study, Rethinking Teaching in STEM Education in a Community College: Role of Instructional Consultation and Digital Technologies, Dr. Kurland discussed educators’ tendency to introduce or to implement technology without aligning it to a theoretical framework, which may lead to the “using technology for the sake of using technology mindset”. She developed and introduced the Learning-Teaching-Technology Cycle. Each of the elements – learning, teaching, and technology – is critical, connected, and inform each other as an educator designs and implements an activity and/or lesson.

Dr. Kurland holds a B.S. in Exercise Science and Sports Studies from Rutgers University, a Master of Arts in Teaching with a concentration in Teacher of the Handicapped and a Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Teacher Education/Teacher Development. Both postgraduate degrees are obtained from Montclair State University. She also serves as a member of the Instructional Technology Council (ITC) Advocacy Committee and a member of the New Jersey Community College Consortium’s Distance Education Affinity Group. Dr. Kurland was also the recipient of NJEDge Distinguished Service Award for Educational Technology in 2018.