I intend to turn the blog to the class. I get all my writing done on the class management tool, Angel. This is the blog of the class, for the class, by the class.
Students Stories
My students already work in the field of health care. They are in the trenches. They work in pediatric emergency rooms, trauma centers, dental offices, and last but not least the meat department at the local supermarket; they see it all.
I would like them to write down the wealth of information they share briefly in class. Usually we don’t have enough time to hear the full story and many questions are left unanswered. I have learned so much from each class and want new students to benefit from the knowledge of their predecessors. As an example, a student told me about a musician friend of hers. He ended up in the hospital with a mysterious ailment that baffled the medical staff. It was anthrax that he contracted from the animal skins he was priming to build a drum. Many students had malaria. One student battled TB for a year. She is not yet out the proverbial woods.
Power Point Presentations Library
Every quarter students write a research paper on an infectious disease of their choice. The paper must be accompanied by a 5-8 minute oral presentation. The papers are usually a solid piece of work, well researched and well written, except for one or two duds. The power point presentations are wonderful. They really grab your attention. For some students, health care is a second career; they come from graphic arts or marketing, and does it show in their work! I would like these presentations to be available as a reference source for future classes. See an example below.
Read this doc on Scribd: Anthrax presentation
Microbes in the News
Students review online a news article from the general press on microbes and society. I can always count on Salmonella, E. coli, or methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) to rear their ugly little heads somewhere in the country.
Microbe of the Week
Discuss in some details one important pathogen a week focusing on its biology and identification rather than the pathology.
“From my teachers, I learned much. From my peers, I learned more. But it is from my students that I learned the most.” – Babylonian Talmud: Mak. 10a; Tan., Ta'an. 7a
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