Workshop Tackles Global Health Impact of Current Events

Every day, a new global challenge is highlighted on the news, from natural disasters and migration, to conflict and emerging epidemics. As an educator, how can we bring these global issues to life in the classroom? On October 16, GHELI hosted a pedagogy workshop titled, “Teaching Current Events Through the Lens of Global Health” for graduate students interested in teaching global health in undergraduate settings. The workshop was led by Farah Qureshi, a graduate pedagogy fellow with both GHELI and the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. 

During the session, participants discussed the value of using active learning techniques to explore the global health implications of current events, and developed an activity based on a topic pulled straight from the headlines: the Rohingya refugee crisis. After watching an online feature documenting climate-related health challenges facing refugees in Bangladesh, participants worked in small teams to learn more about relevant global health challenges using global health surveillance data and recent reports on climate change and health. Participants then collaboratively designed hour-long classroom activities that delved into the topic from a specific global health angle. In the second half of the workshop, participants had the opportunity to practice teaching a segment of their newly designed lesson, and discussed the challenges they encountered moving beyond simple lecture formats and towards more actively engaged classroom activities. 

This session was the first workshop in a year-long series addressing common challenges facing teaching fellows and instructors in global health.