Academic governance and online pedagogy

With the advent of the global COVID-19 pandemic, many higher education institutions have had their hands somewhat forced into diversifying their programs by rapidly transitioning to largely unplanned online delivery of their courses. While this may not have been the case for all higher education providers, the efficacy and quality of the delivery of the online courses rely heavily on their design for the online environment and quality assurance evaluation processes. These processes monitor and review the student experience and their attainment of the intended learning outcomes. Each registered higher education provider in Australia is required to meet the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency's (TEQSA) Higher Education Standards Framework (HESF) (2021). According to TEQSA, academic governance incorporates a range of strategies that monitor and review the implementation and effectiveness of institutional policies to quality assure the providers' academic activities, such as the delivery of online education. Notwithstanding the required regulations, policies and standards, traditional teaching requires a paradigm shift in both the design and delivery of educational programs. The methods inherent in synchronous and asynchronous online learning make the transition from face-to-face to online courses quite challenging, not least because of access to fast and reliable internet service and emerging digital technology, and the use of private and public learning spaces, but also the robust delivery, assessment, feedback, and evaluation of such online courses. Ensuring that higher education providers consider the elements that contribute to the design of online pedagogy, the role of academic governance becomes pivotal. A high level of academic governance enables the rigorous scrutiny and peer review of the transition to online pedagogy, and of the staff who are directly engaged. This chapter will revisit six (6) keys in 'flipping the curriculum' from the FlipCurric framework, developed by Professor Geoff Scott, as part of an Australian Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) National Senior Teaching Fellowship, with the intention to review and monitor quality. The framework can be utilised to assure achievement standards and the quality of assessment in our universities and colleges are consistently maintained. © 2022 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

From Confusion to Clarity: Two Early Years Teachers’ Remote Learning Experience

Just as students experience productive struggle or spend time in the ‘zone of confusion’ when engaging with challenging tasks, teachers also experience similar difficulties and periods of confusion when engaging with new pedagogical approaches. Prior to a 19-week lockdown due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) during 2020, two Foundation teachers implemented a student-centred pedagogical approach when teaching with challenging tasks. While they had some initial success implementing the pedagogical approach and a three-phase lesson structure, they struggled to do so online during the lockdown. It is the experiences of these teachers, in particular their experience of confusion relating to aspects of the pedagogical approach, and how this confusion was overcome, that is reported in this paper. Central to our findings is the importance of teachers reflecting on their own experiences of struggle and the impact this had on their professional learning, as well as the notion that adversity can be a catalyst for change. © 2022 Published by KURA Education & Publishing.

Learning Mathematics From Home During COVID-19: Insights From Two Inquiry-Focussed Primary Schools

In early 2020, due to the COVD-19 pandemic, Australian schools were closed and students began an unprecedented time of remote learning. The current study aimed to understand how teachers planned and implemented mathematics learning programs for their students, the challenges they encountered, as well as the degree to which their students were motivated or engaged when learning mathematics at home. Two teachers from two Australian primary schools who shared a similar contemporary teaching and learning philosophy emphasising inquiry-based learning were interviewed, and students were surveyed anonymously about their engagement (cognitive, emotional, social and behavioural) when learning mathematics from home. Findings indicated that both teachers were concerned about effectively catering for all students and assessing student progress and engagement with the tasks. Survey data revealed most students displayed positive engagement with remote learning experiences, except for the lack of opportunity to learn mathematics with and from their peers. © 2021 by the authors;licensee Modestum. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions ofthe Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

DEVELOPMENT OF A HYPERIMMUNE EQUINE SERUM THERAPY FOR COVID-19 IN ARGENTINA

The disease named COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, is currently generating a global pandemic. Vaccine development is no doubt the best long-term immunological approach, but in the current epidemiologic and health emergency there is a need for rapid and effective solutions. Convalescent plasma is the only antibody-based therapy available for COVID-19 patients to date. Equine polyclonal antibodies (EpAbs) put forward a sound alternative. The new generation of processed and purified EpAbs containing highly purified F(ab')(2 )fragments demonstrated to be safe and well tolerated. EpAbs are easy to manufacture allowing a fast development and scaling up for a treatment. Based on these ideas, we present a new therapeutic product obtained after immunization of horses with the receptor-binding domain of the viral Spike glycoprotein. Our product shows around 50 times more potency in in vitro seroneutralization assays than the average of convalescent plasma. This result may allow us to test the safety and efficacy of this product in a phase 2/3 clinical trial to be conducted in July 2020 in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, Argentina.