Monthly Assignments

September Assignment

In this assignment, I will address the "Why?" in my research. Throught three main points:

Person: Lack of Place: Dining Room Table Thing: "Culture is something that unites people"- Anastasia O. Russia

Link for the Video:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DicUGBVXTWi5JofX_RnNX32p-_xBBhYE/view

QR Code for Video:

October 4th, 2020

Reflection of September 30th Assignment

After the 1st monthly assignment, the E=mc2 program allows students to reflect on the process of completing in the assignment. Below, I will include the rubric in addition to written reflections on the amount of time, communication, storytelling and what I will do differently for the next assignment.

I approached this assignment in a way that I firstly “brain dumped” all of my thoughts, opinions and words into my Notes Application. (Fellow E=mcers use a document or the same technique as it helps us lay our thought process.) Afterwards, I spent approximately an hour just rearranging the ideas in my writing as to what I want to talk about first and how I want to connect my story to the purpose of my research while identifying the person, place & thing. Therefore, I believe my effort put into the storytelling in this assignment is clear and easy to understand with 100% authenticity as shown below in the ruberic.

I timed myself in the process of recording of this assignment just for my own self reflection, not knowing this was a part of the reflection assignment. The process took a total of four hours and fifteen minutes including the amount of time it took to rearrange my ideas that fit visually with images. In my process of preparing for the next assignment, I look forward to arranging my thoughts and organizing them in my notes additionally including visual representation of these thoughts in order to make it easier to connect ideas and concepts!

October Assignment

In my most recent journal I used the example of milk and its human cultural significance, connecting its influence on genetic structures in the human population. I chose to connect a complex topic to something as simple as milk because I wanted to display the correlation in a non confusing matter. In this month's assignment I want to dive deeper into genetic structures of the human population as a response to cultural factors specifically emphasizing Gene-culture coevolution. I will also discuss the emphasis of this topic using an example of a honeybee with my own illustration.

I want to first introduce the importance of "Human Culture" (in previous journals and assignments I have focused primarily on popular and traditional culture). On this SDA I will be referring to "human culture". The purpose of Explaining Human Culture is to briefly summarize what we have learned from cross-cultural research.

Kami Export - October SDA FInal (1).pdf

Reflection of Oct. 30th Assignment

I initially struggled with the freedom given for this assignment. Because of disruptions within my own personal life, I did not reach out to mentors right away to aid me in my research. I now know that communication is key within this process, that I need to find more than just a common theme and further build off of an idea. The main positive of this process is that I learned the importance of reaching out and communicating with others.

For this assignment, I dedicated about three hours which is way less than my first SDA. I plan on dedicating more time and indepth research in my next! While crafting this assignment, I have learned to build off of an idea then finish my observations and data collection before exploring another question or topic even if similar.Therefore some connections in the SDA are not my best but I will work harder on the next.

This will lead to more processed and thorough research in my next assignments throughout the year!

November & December Assignment

My first podcast!

This podcast is an informative and informational piece on Medical Anthropology.

Specifically regarding tribal/traditional and modern practices around the World, addressing opposing perspectives representing the clash between what is socially and culturally accepted.

I also will share a brief story to show both cultural/tribal and modern medicine or practices can coexist.

https://anchor.fm/meryam-ml/episodes/Emc2-program-DECEMBER-SDA-Final--Medical-Anthropology-Ethics--Perspectives-on---tribaltraditional-and-moden-practices-encoaa

What was the most challenging part about this particular SDA?
Did the essential question you started with at the beginning of January get answered in this SDA?
How do you feel as though you met your goal(s)?
Which of the 5Cs is your strongest? Weakest? How do you know?

5Cs - communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, curiosity

How will you use what you’ve learned from this midterm in the next month of research?

This is my favorite assignment so far although the most stressful, it is the most rewarding once it all comes together. Most of my thoughts are positive since I conveyed what I wanted to these months. I am not usually a person to experiment with new outlets when it comes to academics. I think this research project has pushed me to do so.

I have always wanted to try a podcast and because of this course, I can now strike that out of my bucket list. By far, I did not expect the podcast to go smoothly whatsoever. I struggled to keep my tone and voice consistent especially because I was striving for perfect annunciations over emotion in my tone. That is definitely what I will keep in mind for the next assignment, to stay consistent throughout. I have recorded the same sentences more than I would like to admit but at the end of the day, I enjoyed this project. Since the content is restricted on the platform, I am not allowed to explain some practices in depth. I can not use the words "genitalia" or describe the extractions in this FGM practice. Therefore, I refrained from explaining it in-depth and focused on the perspectives of the practice while still communicating the practice has numerous negative effects on a woman's body and that it is a human rights violation.

I am most proud of the fact that although about 20 of the separate recordings got deleted because the page refreshed before I could save, and I recorded it all again. Although some segments aren't conveyed in the energetic tone that I started in the beginning I liked that my initial reaction was to first try to find the recordings then immediately record them again without letting the frustration get to me. In addition, I think my ideas built off of each other and were explained well, the execution with my voice is crucial in this process and it wasn’t consistent because of my technical difficulties. The podcast was a great experience , I portrayed what I wanted when addressing varying perspectives on practices.

January & February Assignment (Midterm)

This podcast contains information on the stakeholders and perspective of nurses in the current COVID-19 pandemic, specifically the outlook of the African American community on the distrust of the medical community and COVID-19 vaccination.

Additionally, overview and conversations on the solutions set forward to restore trust or reduce distrust through analysis of solutions and story.

I also had the opportunity to converse with Mrs. Adi, who is an African American nurse in Houston, Texas. She spent the first three years of her profession in NY, NY then her fourth in Houston, Texas.

Educational experience:

She attended Skidmore College obtaining two degrees in health sciences and nursing, then attended the University of Rochester for two years.

Overall, she shares her experience as a nurse in the COVID era, causes & solutions to distrust, her reasons for entering the medical field, and her experiences with both COVID-19 vaccinations.

Link Below

https://d3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net/staging/2021-02-07/dea7127dbe349b3017e3c8998126e6a1.m4a

Reflection of Jan. and Feb. Assignment

This assignment was the most thought provoking and important one yet!

Prior to this assignment, I had used databases but not thoroughly understanding the purpose of the database when researching a topic for a short project. I had read scholarly articles throughout the years but never had to analyze and explain the articles' implementations in writing. This specific assignment was built off of 3 journal posts, each journal post regarding one scholarly research article. When reading scholarly articles (specifically being limited to one), I have one main goal in mind to analyze the text thoroughly but when reading research-based articles, I analyze and compare the text to other research-based texts. I realized I check certain facts when reading scholarly articles when publishing an earlier date to see how the data has changed, but when reading researched-based texts that are more recent I tend to mostly not double check the data stated in addition to comparing with other texts.

Being limited to one scholarly article in each journal helped me drastically in getting more quality and convenient information; rather than explaining varying points of view in one journal it is better to explain one point of view in each which results in better understanding of the reader. This is a strategy I will take into other journals, where I will search an article that encompasses the topic entirely then will find other research-based articles that support subtopics within the main article.

In regards to the SDA, the most challenging part was to refrain emotional connection to the victims that were exploited by medical professionals throughout history. I took on this essential question from the beginning of the school year knowing I would learn of events throughout history that others may avoid because of the brutality and hatred within them. I believe the hardest part was starting but I am grateful for the knowledge I obtained of various practices and the amazing conversations I had with others about an uncomfortable yet important topic to the COVID era! Out of the 5C’s, I believe communication and collaboration are the strongest in my work since I built trust towards those in the field to aquire their perspecitves. Curiosity is the weakest although I am highly interested and passionate about this topic. The cons of my curiosity towards the field leads to many exposures of realities and cruelties within medical anthropology. Therefore, in the next month of research I will focus on the positives throughout history and current events regarding traditional and modern practices in medical anthropology.

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