An online graduate degree in health informatics can help you gain expertise and advanced technical skills. These programs typically offer more flexibility online than traditional in-person degrees, allowing you to learn on your schedule.
However, online programs also present unique challenges, especially for students who learn best by processing information visually. Fortunately, the right study tips for visual learners can make earning an online degree in health informatics easier and less stressful.
What Do You Study in an Online Health Informatics Program?
Health informatics is an interdisciplinary field that combines data analysis, medicine and information technology (IT). Professionals in this discipline use research and technology to create innovative solutions to healthcare problems and improve patient outcomes.
An online health informatics program may cover many topics related to data and healthcare, such as ethical issues in healthcare, IT, medical technology and systems life cycle management. Curriculum typically includes diverse courses that can help you develop foundational skills in health informatics, such as:
- Applied computer science
- Consumer health informatics
- Data security
- Data visualization
- Financial management
- IT integration
- IT risk management
- Project management
- Public health informatics
- Strategic management
Because a health informatics program covers a broad range of topics and skills, students may find it challenging to master course material quickly, especially in an online learning environment.
What Challenges Do Students Face in Online Health Informatics Classes?
Taking health informatics courses online has its benefits. They can make graduate education more accessible and affordable. Classes with flexible schedules or asynchronous sessions also allow students to study at their own pace while working full-time or caring for their families.
However, online learning also presents many challenges for students, particularly visual learners. Common difficulties include:
- Distractions from technology
- Fewer visual elements
- Less organic interaction between the professor and students
- Increased need for students to take the initiative and study the material on their own
- Reduced sense of classroom community
Developing efficient study strategies can help visual learners overcome many of these challenges.
5 Study Tips for Visual Learners in Health Informatics
Visual learners learn best using images and text. For example, a visual learner may find it easy to memorize a chart but struggle to retain the same information if the teacher delivers it through a spoken lecture.
These five practical study tips can help visual learners succeed in an online health informatics program.
1. Use Graphic Visualization to Take Notes
As a child, you may have been scolded for doodling in class, but drawing is a great way to learn and retain information. You can expand your written notes by creating quick, hand-drawn sketches that illustrate key concepts.
Visual notetaking involves a few simple strategies:
- Listen closely to the class lecture, discussion or presentation.
- Quickly draw symbols to represent meaningful concepts or ideas.
- Write down essential quotes or abstract ideas that you can’t easily convey in a picture.
- Create larger images for more significant ideas and smaller doodles for supporting details.
- Use different colored pens to distinguish between ideas.
- Group similar topics together on the page.
- Draw arrows or links between related ideas.
You don’t need to be a skilled artist to create helpful visual notes. Instead of worrying about your artwork, focus on capturing key ideas and making visual connections between concepts to aid your studying.
2. Annotate Your Readings
You’ll likely need to read and digest many written texts throughout your online program. Visual annotations can help you identify and remember critical ideas from a book chapter or article. This strategy also makes it easier to review readings and pick out key concepts.
You can use highlighters and pens to annotate printed readings or use software to annotate digital texts. Here are a few easy ways to create annotations:
- Circle or highlight main ideas and keywords.
- Jot down quick notes and questions in the margins to record your responses to the text.
- Underline significant quotes or definitions.
- Use white space to rephrase ideas in your own words or draw a quick sketch.
3. Create Flashcards for Key Concepts
Many courses require you to memorize essential concepts, definitions and processes. You can create digital or physical flashcards to visualize information more easily. This accessible and highly effective study strategy involves only three steps:
- Write the key concept you want to memorize on one side of the card.
- On the other side, write down the definition.
- Frequently review your flashcards in short sessions.
You can start studying by looking at definitions and thinking of the corresponding key term. As your knowledge improves, you can reverse the cards to memorize the full definition for each word.
4. Supplement Course Materials with Visual Elements
Many online courses revolve around live or recorded lectures. Some teachers display a PowerPoint or notes while lecturing, but others convey information only by speaking. You may find it helpful to turn on closed captioning to read along with your instructor’s lecture.
If your teacher doesn’t use visual aids, you can supplement your learning by seeking relevant materials from other sources. For instance, you could locate diagrams online showing data architecture or find educational videos covering information technology concepts. While this strategy takes extra effort, it can pay off by helping you build on course materials and study concepts in multiple ways.
5. Minimize Distractions in Your Study Environment
Many visual learners become easily distracted by visual stimuli. Online learning can reduce this issue because you won’t be surrounded by other students in a physical classroom. However, your at-home study space can still have many distractions.
To reduce visual stimuli, you may find it helpful to:
- Avoid multitasking.
- Close distracting tabs and software programs during online classes.
- Attend classes and study alone in a quiet space.
- Remove decorations and other distracting objects.
- Use a study-mode browser extension to prevent yourself from accessing the internet or distracting websites while studying.
Start Your Health Informatics Online Educational Journey
Many visual learners may feel challenged by online courses, but using these five easy visual learning strategies can help set you up for success.
The CAHIIM accredited Master of Science in Health Informatics (MSHI) offers a 100% online graduate degree offered by USF Health’s Morsani College of Medicine. The program is designed specifically for working professionals who seek a flexible schedule and ample support as a student.
