About Me
Hello everyone! My name is Natalie Owusu, and I am a junior here at Old Dominion Univerisity. I major in Biology with a One-Health Concentration, and a minor in Psychology. After I am finished with my undergraduate degree here, I plan on pursuing an MS in Global Health/Masters in Public Health, with the intentions of becoming an epidemiologist in the future. I got interested in this field of public health when the pandemic hit last year. It made me rethink my approach to what I truly wanted to contribute to in the medical field. I saw how slow of a response our country took to coming up with ways to control/slow down COVID-19, and I immediately knew that I wanted to be apart of the solution to the problem. I am from Richmond, VA. I was interested in joining the Innovate Monarchs Program because I wanted to be able to make a real change at this school, and bring my ideas and experience to help with the future of ODU.
Innovate Monarch Experience
In my time with this program, my team and I focused on students in the classroom. When the question was asked "How can we design a univerisity ready for African American and LatinX learners," we immediately came up with similar experiences that we had faced in the classroom, and how we could alter that disconnect to increase the number of prospective students at ODU in the years to come. We wanted to essentially eliminate the disconnect between students and faculty when it comes to teaching practices in the classroom. From my own personal experience, I want faculty to understand that there are a variety of learners, and we do not all comprehend class material on the same level.
For our prototype, we came up with the name "Monarchs Flipping the Classroom," because students would be leading training sessions for faculty/staff in order for them to create a more content learning environment. How this will be initiated is that students will be given an option to participate in this program, and at the end they will give feedback suggestions to the teachers as to what could be added or removed in their teaching curriculum.
Mindests of a Human-Centered Designer
I practiced the Innovation is for Everyone mindset when I had to take all my ideas and put it together with the team to come up with our prototype. Collabing with my team and listening/taking in everyone's ideas helped me during our process. This taught me that when you work together with a team, you shouldn't be afraid to embrace everyone's ideas.
I practiced the Know Your Why mindset when I had to make sure to stay on task, and not deter from the common goal. My team and I all had similar personal experiences in the classroom, but I kept trying to solve more issues than one that I felt were roadblocks/obstacles in the classroom. Aligning our focus on one main issue that we all agreed on helped me during our process. This taught me that focusing on one common goal is very important when it comes to working together with a team.
I practiced the Show & Tell mindset when I had to work with my team on the website and slides for the pitch event. We came up with surveys to ask student's what qualities they believe a professor should have and vice versa. From that, the general consensus of responses that came in showed that students want professor's to be more understanding. This gave me the oppurtunity to get creative with our prototype and collab with my team as well. Showing my creative side helped me during our process. This taught me that having similar experiences and putting those together to come up with an idea, will help in the long run.
I practiced the Radical Collaboration mindset when I had to network with other faculty members to see if they would be interested in participating in our training sessions. It was difficult in the beginning because we reached out to a lot of faculty members and we weren't getting any responses back, so that discouraged us a little bit. Definetly keeping the faith, and knowing that as long as we work together and work our hardest, we can accomplish anything helped me during our process. This taught me that when you hit a roadblock you shouldn't give up, and also that it's always important to reach out to someone when you're struggling, and get feedback because it will help in the long run.
I practiced the Empathetic & Human-Centered mindset when I had to look over the responses of the student's that gave their input on what they felt like could better enhance their learning experience in the classroom. After looking at the responses, I realized that the common issue that student's wrote is an issue that is relatable to all student's in the classroom, and it goes beyond ODU in itself. Once my team and I came to that conclusion, we found that this was the root of where the connection was for everyone. Putting my own thoughts aside and looking at everyone's feelings through all of this helped me during our process. This taught me that it's important to lend a listening ear to what other's have to say.
I practiced the Embrace Ambiguity mindset when I had to think about how we could solve the problem in the classroom between students and faculty. I was mostly thinking in terms of how this student-led training session could be immediately implemented starting next semester, so that we could ask student's during orientation if they wanted to participate in the program ahead of time. Realizing that this issue could not be fixed overnight helped me during our process. This taught me that all the problems in the world can't be solved in one day. Patience is key, and there's a time for everything.
I practiced the Iterate, Iterate, Iterate mindset when I had to look at all the feedback for our website. I had to really observe with my team what needed to be fixed, and how we could make our website better. Learning from our mistakes helped me during our process. This taught me that it's okay to do something over and over again till you get it right. Practice makes perfect.
Applying Innovate Experiences in the Future
This program relates to my future career in epidemiology because I am going to have to be quick on my feet when it comes to solving problems and coming up with different solutions. COVID-19 has strains that are always altering and mutating, so by using what I've learned in this program, I will be able to come up with a variety of solutions. The world is ever-changing and design thinking is definetly a tool that I will apply to attacking world issues head on. Design-thinking will help me out in future projects because I will be able to use my creative thinking, networking and organizational skills to work together with my team to finish our day-to-day tasks. The most important thing I learned personally is that empathizing every issue in that comes your way will help you to decipher problems in a different way. I feel as if the prototype we made solves real-world problems by reaching every student in a classroom, and changing the narrative on how there can be a real connection between professor's and student's when we come together to understand each other.
Credits:
Created with images by GLady - "rose flower dew" • jarmoluk - "apple books still life" • jarmoluk - "laboratory analysis chemistry"