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Epidemiological Thinking and Population Health
( PPol/Geron/Nursing/HighEd 797, Fall 07, PPol/Nursing 753, Fall 09)
(Previously: Pathways of Disease & Development: Epidemiological Thinking for Non-specialists)
(8/07)
Initial Goals
Arrange a set of readings that introduces the concepts of epidemiology and enables students to interact thoughtfully with specialists. The course does not require the students to become proficient in the mathematics or software packages. Students are assumed to have a statistical background, but the course goal is methodological "literacy" not technical expertise.
Case studies and course projects are shaped to accommodate students with interests in fields related to health, gerontology, education, psychology, sociology, and public policy.
To cultivate skills and dispositions of critical thinking and of life-long, cooperative learning facilitated by the resources of the internet. To pilot the use of a wiki for assembling resources beyond what the instructor can provide the diverse students who would take the course.
For the instructor to see which of the programs the students come from and become acquainted with the interests of students from a range of programs.
See structure of class meetings and written assignments, which emphasized student-led seminar discussions, not lectures.
The conventional notion of teaching as transmission of knowledge from instructor to students still has some place. The instructor will provide in advance an introduction to and motivation of each sessions' readings and cases. Discussion leaders may arrange for the instructor to give a mini-lecture, if this seems appropriate, or the instructor may add a response to the substantive statement. The one-on-one interaction around course projects and in preparation for discussion leading provides opportunities for individualized attention. The instructor will provide assistance with technical questions of concern either to the whole class or to the individual student, refer to relevant sections of Gordis and Kirkwood, and/or help students create a network of specialists they can consult with during and the semester and after the course is over.
It is expected that students (and the instructor) will have to employ strategies of reading that allow us to extract take-home lessons from readings even as we skip sections that become too technical for us.
Challenges and Responses
See instructor's self-evaluation, which, after student feedback to this self-eval., led to the following revised structure of class meetings and written assignments, even as the basic flow of topics remained mostly unchanged.
Future Plans
See revised structure of class meetings and written assignments and revised syllabus as a whole.
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