Increasing engagement and student participation in Higher Education: Insights from the University of Pisa during COVID-19

The emergency distance learning methods adopted to face the pandemic are connected to some inherent problems which concern the lack of social aspects, interactions, and motivation. These and other frequent issues threaten to stop the opportunities offered by the widespread use of educational technology. This paper examines how the Higher Education Institutions adapted to the evolution of the pandemic, compared to relevant insights from University of Pisa gathered during the academic year 2020/21. Focusing on the communicative and socio-emotional aspects of the didactic event, we propose engagement tools real-Time interaction applications designed to increase active learning and motivation as a feasible solution that might tackle some of the emerged teaching-learning issues. In this context, it appears that the potential of these versatile and easy-To-Apply tools has not been fully exploited. Specific teacher training actions are therefore suggested. © HEAd 2022. All Rights Reserved.

Spreading of COVID-19 in Italy as the spreading of a wave packet.

We find that the spreading of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy can be described as the propagation of a wave packet in a dispersive medium where the effect of lockdown is simulated by the dispersion relation of the medium. We start expanding a previous statistical analysis based on the official data provided by the Italian Civil Protection during 100 days, from March 2nd to June 9th. As the total number of people infected with the virus is uncertain, we have considered the trend of ICU patients and the sum of hospitalized patients and the deceased. Both the corresponding curves are well approximated by the same function depending on four free parameters. The model allows to predict the short-term behavior of the pandemic and to estimate the benefits due to lockdown measures.