Learning with us

If this is your first course, please review the ‘Using FutureLearn’ for an introduction to learning with FutureLearn.

How will we learn?

Throughout our three weeks together, we will use articles, mini-lectures, and videos with experts in the field to highlight some of the key issues and thinking around disease outbreaks in low- and middle income countries. We encourage you to assess your learning through quizzes and share your experiences and views through discussion with fellow learners and the course team. Most steps include reference lists and supplementary reading that you may find useful for further study.

How will I learn?

There is no single way to approach the course that guarantees success. The way you learn depends on many factors and will not necessarily be the same as everyone else. However, in order to maintain enthusiasm and gain confidence about your studies, why not take a more active role within the course? You could:

• Take notes on course steps. Which aspects of the material are most interesting to you and why? Is there anything you have struggled to understand? Why might that be?

• Analyse connections between the current step and previous ones to help build a clearer picture of a topic

• Ask yourself questions about what you’re learning and how it relates to your own experiences

• Discuss your learning with others and consider how you can apply new knowledge, either in your personal life or a professional situation

• Explain what you have learned to others if they are struggling.

In summary, one great way to figure out how to learn is to think about it.

Join the discussion

Almost every step has space for conversation and debate in the Comments area. While Discussion steps feature more focused conversational tasks, anyone can talk about material within each step’s Comments area. We will regularly prompt you to share your thoughts and ideas with questions or suggestions at the end of a step. You can contribute to these conversations as and when you are able to. You might like to read 6 tips and tools for social learning on FutureLearn to help you get the most out the platform’s social features.

This course is no longer being moderated by the LSHTM team. If you see a comment that violates FutureLearn’s Code of Conduct, please press the flag button beneath the comment for FutureLearn’s moderators to review.

Would you like a certificate?

If you want to record your achievements in the course you can buy a Certificate of Achievement from FutureLearn. The Certificate of Achievement is a great way to show what you have learned and can act as evidence of your Continuing Professional Development. This is a personalised certificate and transcript, detailing the syllabus and learning outcomes of the course. It comes as a printed certificate and features a digital version that can be added to your LinkedIn profile. To be eligible, you must mark at least 90% of the steps in this course as complete and attempt every quiz question.

Re-using course materials

If you’re an educator or work in an aligned field, we encourage you to download, adapt, and re-use the content from this course for teaching and learning purposes. Materials will be made available on the School’s Open Study platform.

Disclaimer

In order to provide the best education on outbreaks in low- and middle-income countries, many of our steps will contain videos or lectures from individuals working in affected countries. As a result, some of the audio quality on the content is low due to limited access to filming equipment. If you have difficulty understanding what is being said, we suggest you turn on the subtitles. The reality during an outbreak or other emergency is that you may not have access to reliable internet, electricity or other tools you would typically use; however, it is important to use what is available in order to get the job done. Even if that means going back to pen and paper.