Innovative Pedagogies for Global Learning in Undergraduate Public Health

Perhaps more than ever before, the current generation of college students is engaged with global health topics and the complexities of global health inequalities.  Study abroad and service-learning opportunities have become normative across college campuses and frequently engage in health-related topics.  The opportunity harness this experiential learning trend for public health education at the undergraduate level is an important one.  This presentation will focus on a model developed at Agnes Scott College in which students travel as a group for a short, immersive experience during a semester-long on-campus course.  It will also discuss efforts at Agnes Scott College to infuse the new college-wide global learning and leadership development initiative (SUMMIT) into the undergraduate public health curriculum.  Through the SUMMIT curriculum, all first-year students will participate in a course on global learning with an embedded travel component, and, in addition to traditional study abroad offerings, upper-year students can elect to take additional courses with embedded travel of relevance to their chosen areas of study.  This presentation will highlight specific learning goals and outcomes of one first-year course focused on health and migration in the Dominican Republic and an upper-year student course on health and development in Brazil.  Incorporation of students’ global learning experiences into the core curriculum of the undergraduate public health major will also be discussed.  Finally, the presentation will consider the potential value and drawbacks of short-term global experiential coursework.