Diving Deep Into Instructional Design

February 26, 2018
Teaching fellow workshop.

Fresh off the start of the spring semester, teaching fellows in global health courses at Harvard College gathered at the Incubator for an interactive workshop in instructional design. The session was led by Farah Qureshi, a Pedagogy Fellow with the Incubator and Global Health Departmental Teaching Fellow with the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. During the workshop, teaching fellows discussed how to develop lesson objectives for global health activities, focusing on those relating to the conditions and determinants of major health challenges, and potential responses from the health and non-health sectors. 

Participants also walked through the process of developing different classroom activities aimed at tackling different angles of a single public health challenge. In particular, teaching fellows learned how to design data interpretation activities to teach students about global health trends across time and regions; interactive role play activities to help students consider the impact of public health policies on a wide array of key stakeholders; and guided discussions around global health news stories to analyze how cross-national forces can influence health issues within a single country. For each class activity reviewed, templates were distributed for teaching fellows to use in their spring courses. All materials will soon be available for access through the GHELI website. 

In line with its mission to advance innovative teaching around multidisciplinary global challenges, GHELI will continue to create and disseminate teaching materials for wide use across disciplines and learner levels. For graduate students at Harvard University, pedagogy workshops on instructional design and implementation will be offered throughout the spring semester.