ABSTRACT
Innovation in forestry education is needed to address changing contexts of the positionality of forests. This is particularly significant in the Asia-Pacific region, where deforestation and degradation are high. However, the accessibility of high-quality forestry education to address changing regional and global contexts is lacking. A series of innovative sustainable forest management (SFM) open education resource (OER) courses were developed and implemented to improve the accessibility of SFM education to enhance teaching quality, curriculum, and research capacity of universities in the Asia-Pacific Region. To evaluate the SFM-OER program in terms of student experiences, this study investigated student achievement, perceived success of the pedagogical approach and instructional design, and perceived effectiveness of the learning activities in promoting active and transformative learning through the assessment of a 1,191-course feedback survey between 2018 and 2020, including the global pandemic. This study revealed that the program attracted diverse student demographics, including a higher proportion of female students majoring in forestry, ecology, and other environmental studies. Their primary motivation to participate in the courses was to gain international experience, followed by the flexibility of online learning, mandatory course requirements, and earning course credits. Students were satisfied with the Canvas learning management system. Most students spent less than 5 to 10 h of their weekly time in the course and agreed or strongly agreed that the workloads were manageable. Students reflected positively on various learning activities and assignments, such as watching lecture videos, taking quizzes, reading and summarizing, having discussions, and peer review writing. However, they did not clearly prefer specific learning activities, signifying the importance of using diverse learning activities to satisfy diverse individual learning styles in online settings. This analysis contributes to the further development of student-centered pedagogical development for online learning and provides insight into the ways forward for online higher forestry education, while repurposing existing OER courses in a post-Covid-19 era.
ABSTRACT
California has an aging vegetable-crop producing workforce and well-trained workers are urgently needed. The States public universities with agricultural programs thus have a critical role in preparing the future workforce to sustain the State s economy. The aim of this project was to develop educational materials to train the next generation of workers with the technical, agronomic, economic and ecological skills required to keep Californias vegetable crop sector innovative and competitive. Thirty high-quality instructional videos on vegetable crop production, marketing, and postharvest processing and handling systems were created. Students were surveyed on the utility of selected videos, by assessing various parameters of knowledge before and after watching the videos. The videos made positive and significant changes in the knowledge of the topics among students. Therefore, incorporation ofvideos into agricultural curricula should contribute to effective communication and understanding of concepts by post-secondary students.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/complications , Macrophage Activation Syndrome/diagnosis , Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome/diagnosis , COVID-19/diagnosis , COVID-19/etiology , COVID-19/physiopathology , Female , Humans , Infant , Macrophage Activation Syndrome/etiology , Macrophage Activation Syndrome/physiopathology , Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome/etiology , Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome/physiopathologyABSTRACT
Anaesthetic management of patients with Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) posses multiple challenges. In the low-income nation like Nepal, factors like suboptimal infrastructure and resource limitations may add on to the existing challenges. Proper planning and preparedness can help to overcome the challenges and enhance safety of both the patients undergoing surgery and of the health care workers involved in patient management. Keywords: Anaesthetic management; COVID-19; Nepal.