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Educational Videos – Module 5

The Immune System Explained

To summarize this video, it simplifies human’s immune system into the varying cellular substituents that act as guards, soldiers, intelligence, weapons factories, or communicators to protect us from bacteria, fungi, and viruses. While there are a total of 21 different cells and 2 different protein forces that function in the immune system with each cell having up to four different jobs, it greatly simplified the responsibilities by correlating specific colors to jobs and then adding the colors/responsibilities to each cell. This was done by the primary job being the central color in the cell, while all secondary responsibilities were colors shown in the perimeter. This was extremely helpful because it clearly illustrated the differences in primary and secondary responsibilities, as well as making it clear what function similarities there are between these different cells. Further, the video did not go into detail for every single cell; it only went into detail for the 10 essential cells that always function in immune system responses. With this in mind, it used narrated visuals describing the process when pathogens gain entry inside the body, Macrophage guard cells “swallowing” the invaders, breaking them down, stimulating inflammation and recruitment of Neutrophils. If this is not enough, then Macrophages activate Dendritic Cells to collect parts of the invader cells on their outer layer to either recruit/activate antiviral forces or an army of bacterial killers (depending on the type of invader), travels to closest lymph node to activate Helper T cells and Killer T cells with receptors that are specific for the type invader that was broken down to only destroy the invader cells. Some of the Helper T cells also activate B cells, that function as the weapons factor to produce antibodies to destroy invading cells, as well as increasing the efficiency of other cells to fulfill their responsibilities.

As I am a senior in Microbiology and have already learned about this material in depth, I already have a fairly firm grasp of the immune system. However, this video was still very helpful at making this extremely complex process as simple as possible by calling these specific cells by nicknames that refer to their function, such as guards or weapon factories. Thinking about them in this way makes it very easy to remember what the cells’ primary jobs are. Further, the color coordination of jobs specific to each cell type taught me the similarities between these cells. I used to always think of these different immune system cells as having very separate roles that function together in the immune system, both I learned that many of them have the same secondary and even primary responsibilities, although they may occur at different locations or times after infection. Ultimately, I learned how I can simplify other complex processes in the future by taking some of the learning concepts this video used and apply them to learn other difficult systems in a similar fashion.

Tailor Studying and Reading to You! (Module 3)

The most important thing that stuck out to me in this module is that every person requires different needs for reading and studying. Saying that, it is important that one is open-minded to try new environments, recording key points in different ways (copy and paste quotes/entire article, highlighting, and/or writing notes on the article), and process and organize information in different ways (infographics, animations, annotated presentations, etc.). Simply put, if you just read over the information or study the material one time and very quickly without pausing to understand the importance and trying to summarize what you said, then you will never remember the information. Moreover, it is fine if it takes someone quite some time to find what strategy works for them, but the most important thing is that once he/she finds what works best for them, they consistently stick with it (whether you like it or not!). These study tools are proven to work and improve your retention of information, so if you want to get all your required information down as efficiently as you can to have more time to spend out on the town, then formulate the best set of study tools for you and make it happen, cap’n.