Student blogs

My last assignment in the previous first semester was a challenge to present a project that could give impact to more than 1% of the population, even better if it has a global impact. The assignment could be viewed as if it was a healthcare idea competition, but the competition was substituted by the atmosphere of how to pass the assignment. It was one of the several assignments in the course: Computer applications in health care. So, what did exactly happen?

1. It began with the “Sorting Hat”

It was all started with assigning all the students into groups, randomly performed not by the enchanted hat that we might have seen in a wizardry-themed movie franchise, but rather by Pingpong, the educational platform used at Karolinska Institutet. For this particular assignment, the class was divided into several groups of two. This random grouping method has been used severally and is quite fun as it put the student in the situation of working with different team members for every group, although still a small chance of always being in the same group with a certain person.

Not the sorting hat we deserve, but at least we got a digital one, sort of. Credit to reginaray6. Source: www.pixabay.com

2. Mind your (global) problem?

We were ought to seek a problem exists in the real world. The easiest way was to be inspired by several reports about global health issues.

We chose antimicrobial resistance as the main topic to be explored. A clear problem statement was definitely required before proceeding further. By defining a specific problem, we managed to identify the key stakeholders and similar projects. Iteration is not always bad, because actually, our final project was quite different from the one we decided in the first meeting. At first we thought of how to strengthen the antimicrobial stewardship among healthcare practitioner, but then in the final report we discussed about how to raise awareness about antimicrobial resistance in the community setting.

Let’s raise global awareness about antimicrobial resistance. Picture credit to jniittymaa0. Source: www.pixabay.com

3. Develop the solution

The main activity of the assignment was this part. How we are expected to generate an idea to solve the problem that we chose before. Here was all of our creativity (and of course our understanding of all the previous courses) were needed most. The solution also should utilize public health informatics, hence the programme is health informatics =P.

The other groups also developed many interesting solutions, some would proposed solutions for reducing alcohol intake, some for promoting physical activities, some for suicidal prevention, several others around antimicrobial resistance also, and many more.

How developing the solution for assignment looks like. Picture credit to SarahRichterArt. Source: www.pixabay.com

4. Wow the audience!

What was a good idea for if one could not “sell” it? The culmination of the assignment was to present the solution and convince the panelists that we deserve an A score.

Just kidding! The grade was addressed in Pass / Fail format as most of the group assignment I had experienced during my study at KI, which this grading system was good in my opinion.

When your teacher gets wow-ed by your presentation. Picture credit to Free-Photos. Source: www.pixabay.com

Having passed the assignment and currently in the second semester leads me to wonder if there will be more of this exciting form of assignment. Due to its “less academic” ambiance, I think it will lessen the stress felt by the students and also promote learning motivation.

Until next post then!

You can contact me at:

e-mail: winner.ng@stud.ki.se

LinkedIn: Winner Ng