Guide for Reflection Piece on Chapter Project in HL 322

Team Name: Team Avengers

1. As a team and as we reflect on our chapter project work, how much do we feel our work helped
us to meet NMU mission-central concepts of independent thinking/self-directed learning, critical
thinking, lifelong learning habits, awareness of diversity, and sensitivity to being productive citizens in
the global community? Please explain and give examples.
While writing our chapter for HL322 we had to challenge the skills laid out in the mission of NMU. We
had to produce a chapter while working in a self-directed group setting. This allowed us to get to know
new people, appreciate our differences and what we could all bring to the project. We had to split up
the work and make sure it turned into a cohesive finished product. As a group, we had to think critically
about our issue and how we could intervene to help solve the problem. We expanded our knowledge
base of the world around us and have become aware of the global impact vaccines and education can
have. We have become passionate about spreading the word about vaccines and trying to combat
misinformation.
2. As a team and as we reflect on our chapter project work, how much do we feel our work helped
us to meet the Liberal Studies (LS) outcomes of writing/communicating clearly and effectively, of
being able to evaluate various forms of evidence/knowledge, of being able to engage in analytical
reasoning and argument, of being able to understand and apply quantitative analysis and scientific
processes, and to see across disciplinary boundaries? Please explain and give examples.
Our chapter encompassed the Liberal Studies outcomes by allowing us to research, create a website,
and analyze our research to allow us to develop an intervention to help solve our issue. We had to write
an executive summary, mission statement and present our finding through many different types of
media. We had to effectively communicate our background information, history, cultural aspects,
economic issues, as well as, the environmental and political aspect that affected the use of vaccines in
Chad. While evaluating our sources and finding good information we had to decide how it fit into these
aspects and how to present the information in a way that would get other people passionate about our
work.
3. As a team and as we reflect on our chapter project work, how much do we feel our work helped
us to meet the Social Science LS outcomes of understanding the scientific process (gathering data
methods for the project, analyzing the effectiveness of interventions, etc.) as it applies to the social
sciences (cultural, economic, historical, environmental and political aspects)? Please explain and give
examples.
Creating this chapter on measles in Chad, helped us to further develop our understanding of the
scientific method and how it applies to world health issues. While creating our chapter, we had to
evaluate resources and research to discover the main issues of why measles vaccines were not available
at a higher rate. We had to gather data on the history, economic, cultural, environmental and political
aspects that make measles outbreaks a problem in Chad. While evaluating this data we came up with a
plausible intervention. We hypothesized that having more refrigerated trucks and being able to spread
vaccines to rural areas would help stop the spread of measles in Chad. We have yet to test our
hypothesis but based on other interventions this seems to be a probable solution. Many aspects play
into the reasons why vaccines are not readily available for everyone.
4. As a team and as we reflect on our chapter project work, how much do we feel our work helped
us to appreciate another world culture? That is, understand another (vs. our own) distinctive world
view (values, norms, and beliefs -- culture) and understand how culture is expressed in terms of
health issues and understand how factors such as racial, ethnic, gender and class differences affect
health issues for a people?
This project helped our group to research what is may be like to live in a different country with high
rates of disease prevalence. It truly put into perspective just how well we have it here, health care-wise,
as opposed to developing countries. Things that are not a big deal here are very real and dire terrors
elsewhere.
5. As a team and as we reflect on our chapter project work, how much do we feel our work helped
us to engage the health outcomes of assessing/identifying a health need in a target population,
researching for effective or evidence-based interventions, seeing how the interventions were
implemented (administered and managed), and understanding how they were evaluated? Also, how
much did we see the need for capacity-building interventions vs just aid-based interventions? Please
explain and give examples.
We believe that it helped us immensely. By taking the time to research and delve in head-over-heels
into the statistics and whatnot of another country, it really helped us open our eyes to the needs of the
less fortunate.
In our research we found that the Republic of Chad does not have the infrastructure to become capacity
based while vaccinating their citizens. Chad will be have to be involved as an aid-based project until they
can build their economy and become a more independant and self-sustaining. However, the importance
of teaching the skills and awareness of vaccines could lead to the country becoming a more capacity-
based environment. Most of the population (74.9%) live in remote areas that are difficult to reach with
limited access to modern conveniences. The infrastructure of Chad cannot provide paved highways or
roads to reach most communities. This is the reason that aid-based interventions are needed at this
time. As a country they need assistance with vehicles that are capable of reaching these communities.
As well as aid in creating cold chains to store the vaccines in climate controlled environment.
6. As a team and as we reflect on our chapter project work, how much do we feel that we engaged
the NMU vision-central outcome of having students engage in a high tech learning environment?
Please explain and give examples.
Northern Michigan University challenges its students and employees to think independently
and critically, develop lifelong learning habits, acquire career skills, embrace diversity and become
productive citizens in the regional and global community has been described as its mission, and the
vision as, NMU will become the university of choice in the Midwest for students seeking a quality
academic program with individualized attention in a high-tech learning environment.
We believe that we did a good job of meeting that goal. Two weeks of our class was spent in a
traditional lecture, whereas the other two were spent on our own time, meeting together in person and
working online. We used the resources available: facebook, google docs, email, instant messaging,
everything to coordinate our thoughts and works into one cohesive project and product.
There are so many resources online available to us for free, and we believe that this class has
done an excellent job in helping us utilize them not only to further our education, but to prepare us for
standing out in the real world and making a difference. In fact, our own fictional charity group, VIDA,
has gotten more likes on Facebook than some local music groups in less than 48 hours. This surge in
interest has inspired us to keep on with our research and see just how far we can go with our goal of
changing the world.
7. As a team and as we reflect on our chapter project work, how much do we feel that we engaged
creative and innovative practices. Please explain and give examples.
Speaking as science-oriented students, sometimes creativity can be hard to come by (years of
memorization, recitation, and fact-regurgitation can really get to you), but this gave us the opportunity
to think outside of the box. We got to analyze the situation at hand and think about how to fix what was
broken and provide what was lacking.
Thinking outside of the box is not promoted enough in students, and this was a perfect
opportunity for us. Using our backgrounds as science students, we were able to address the
fundamental and underlying problems, and then using the manner of thinking encouraged in our class,
we came up with a solution.
Also, creatively, the video we made was incredibly fun and hopefully accessible to the general
public. In order to get the message across of how easily spread a virus can be, we simply had to reach
back into our minds and think, What else can be easily spread but easily seen?
Glitter. Its always glitter.