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This chapter provides a glimpse into the conversation around the resources that university staff need to thrive in their work both on campus or through telework. The COVID-19 pandemic and shifting to working from home exposed disparities in resources for staff at the University of Utah many of which existed in the on-campus work environment as well. Institutions of higher education were no exception;most non-essential employees made the change from working on campus to a teleworking environment. Because most colleges and universities still operate from a brick-and-mortar setting and primarily offer in-person instruction, this change to serving students and carrying out job responsibilities from home was a huge and unexpected shift, and very little infrastructure was in place for addressing needs and providing essential tools and resources for employee thriving in a work-at-home environment. It is found that the move to working from home revealed a broad continuum where on one end staff had access to essential resources for thriving as new telecommuters, and on the other end staff struggled from one day to the next to maintain quality services for students and co-workers due to the lack of basic resources. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
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Attendance is an important part of the academic environment. The manual method of marking student attendance is time-consuming and also not accurate. So, the use of biometric attendance is a better alternative to the manual method. There are many biometric techniques that can be considered to design an automated system to mark attendance. Facial recognition is one such biometric technique that can be used. In this paper, we propose the implementation of facial recognition where the attendance is marked by recognizing the faces detected in the video feed from the classroom. We are in the midst of the once in a century crisis, ever since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out it has become imperative to accommodate certain behavioral changes in our day to day lives, one such major change which is essential to curb the spread of COVID-19 is to wear a face mask, and thus, the facial recognition-based attendance adds another advantage by recognizing the faces even though students would be wearing the masks. Another important measure that needs to be followed to contain the spread of COVID-19 is to ensure social distancing in all public spaces;hence, there is a need to ensure that social distancing norms are followed by the students. So, we propose implementation of a system to monitor the social distancing among the students. Further, we propose to implement a COVID-19 vaccination status monitoring system using which we can monitor the vaccination status of the individuals through the video feed from the classroom. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Background: This work aims to study the levels of stress among students using e-learning platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic in higher education institutions. The major factors of higher-level stress among the student community focused on this study are: Changes in academic environment, family, social, personal, health and cognitive. Objective: the objective of this research the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) procedure was used to explore the relationship and its impact on various levels of stress. Results: Data were collected by using a total of 1,000 email IDs of students that were made available by teachers from 12 Indian higher education institutions where they were enrolled and by using a random number method. With this procedure, a total of 800 email IDs were selected. The results drawn from this research are that students experienced more stress due to sudden changes in the academic environment, family, and personal factors. The stress levels of cognitive and social were found to be equally distributed among higher education students, but less than academic environment, family and personal. This research intends to fill the gap of short-term individual psychological changes that occur after the outbreak. Conclusion: Policy-makers can take note of the current study's observations in continuing their fight against COVID-19 pandemic by improving the stability for student risk groups.
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Leisure or entertainment, like other everyday needs, are fundamental activities for human well-being. The creation of activities that lead to moments of satisfaction and relaxation are also a focus of attention and one of the areas of intervention where design can contribute solutions. This project challenged a group of students on a degree course in product design to develop modern, alternative board games, centred on users and on situations and environments of use, in order to exercise the practice of product design and seek to present innovative solutions. The challenge came through a local Cultural Association, with a tradition in promoting this type of game. The project followed a design project methodology that led students through a first phase of immersion in the theme, mechanics and strategies of games and their variety, going through the generation of ideas, models, evaluation tests, to the production of prototypes. The project was subject to the constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced students and teachers to work at home. To improve teaching and learning experiences, the project involved specialists and professionals who shared their knowledge and experience in developing this type of product. This gave rise to a great diversity of solutions, resulting from the use of an adequate methodology, making it possible to design new board games in which the mechanics, when articulated with a theme of interest to the target audience, can result in a proposal for an appealing and unique game. © Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education: Disrupt, Innovate, Regenerate and Transform, E and PDE 2022. All rights reserved.
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Little was known about the experiences of K-5 online tutors. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of online tutors regarding their pedagogical practices and digital tools used when tutoring students in Grades K-5. The community of inquiry model served as the conceptual framework. Data included online tutor profiles, websites, and one-to-one interviews with 16 participants. Data were coded and analyzed using NVivo. Findings were interpreted within the contexts of the conceptual framework and the literature. The study revealed five themes: K-5 online tutors as educational entrepreneurs, rewards of being a K-5 online tutor entrepreneur, challenges of being a K-5 online tutor entrepreneur, pedagogical practices of an online tutor, and using digital tools to enhance online tutoring. This study adds to the body of literature by providing insight about the experiences of K-5 online tutors and online tutor entrepreneurship where previous research only revealed online tutoring practices related to instruction, curriculum, and digital tools. The negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to interfere with students' learning. The data revealed a range of pedagogical practices and digital tools used by K-5 online tutors who may inform K-5 online tutoring policies and/or a model of research-based, synchronous, online tutoring to reach more learners. Positive social change in K-5 online learning environments can result in communities of inquiry designed to help K-5 students improve academic outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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Internships aim at transitioning students from the academic environment (academic learning at the university) to a professional work environment (industry practice). Our paper aims to objectively evaluate the alignment of learning with practice based on the internship program conducted in Term 1, 2020 (pre-Covid), for our undergraduate students at the College of Technology Innovation studying in the bachelor's program for Computer Science and Information Systems. In order to measure the alignment, from a theoretical perspective, we adopted the framework of Kirkpatrick, which provides a set of "consumptive metrics"for evaluating the learning resources consumed in education and training, using the constructs 'reaction' (how the learners feel, including their personal reactions to the internship training) and 'learning' (measuring the knowledge, skills, or attitudes acquired as a direct result of the training, including mapping to their courses). Using 36 internship student reports collected over a single semester (in which students spent 8 weeks onsite at various organizations in the United Arab Emirates) as a sample for this study, we measured internship results in terms of the learning resources consumed during the internship experience using consumptive metrics to observe its alignment with practice. The results of the study allow academics to reinforce strong areas and improve areas of concern to better align learning with practice. © 2021 IEEE.
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Prior to the pandemic, two-thirds of universities and colleges administered courses in the traditional face-to-face setting. After the abrupt change due to the pandemic, educators submerged themselves in virtual pedagogy and forged ahead in preparing the future workforce. An area that may have been overlooked was ensuring the learning environment remained diverse, equitable, and inclusive for all learners. Vital to students matriculating through programs and entering the healthcare workforce is recognizing and understanding student learning styles and having an ecological glimpse of circumstances that may affect their learning. Employing the intersectionality framework to explore inequities exacerbated by students' identities is a starting point. Implementing strategic priorities and DEI practices to decrease the equity gap that exists in the healthcare system and higher education institutions is essential. Health profession educators play a unique role in serving as change agents for future healthcare professionals who have a direct impact on health outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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This research focuses on the use of gamification in collaborative learning, which means, implementing game-based activities in the virtual education of students from Educación General Básica. Gamification is a strategy that seeks to increase the motivation and creativity of students in academic environments, to obtain better results in their learning. Therefore, the objective of this research was to develop author resources based on gamification tools in the collaborative learning of students at Educación General Básica. Therefore, the type of research is experimental - analytical, since it allows to analyze the experiment applied in the study population through a pretest and posttest, the ADDIE model was used for the development of resources, which consists of creating experiences in the educational process to enhance skills in students. To determine the reliability of the instrument, Cronbach's alpha statistic was used with a value of 0.842. Furthermore, the tools used were Powtoon and Kahoot which are important resources for students to improve their knowledge in an innovative and creative way. The results of this research were optimal, the students give a positive response for the development of gamification tools within the classroom since those help them to learn an interactive and dynamic way. © 2022 IEEE.
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COVID-19 generated new forms of student-teacher interactions, and it increased the use of virtual educational environments. Electronic messaging is one of the most widely used forms of communication between teachers and students. However, few studies on how teachers provide feedback motivate and encourage students to engage in academic activities in online learning environments. This study aims to characterize messages sent by university teachers to their students with low academic performance during the emergency remote teaching in the COVID-19 pandemic context. The electronic messages were obtained through the snowball sampling technique. The sample consisted of eighteen email threads facilitated by six universities. Ethical requirements for this type of research were met, and discourse or text analysis was used as a methodology with a qualitative approach and hermeneutic orientation. This study shows two main results. First, the necessary data to identify students with low academic performance can be mainly obtained from their teachers and third parties, like university authorities. Second, there are a number of elements to consider when creating messages to improve the engagement of underperforming students. These fundamental elements are: tone of voice, content of the message and moment in which the message is sent. Messages that are explicitly written for each student or group of students and messages that were written with anticipation, showed to be most effective in engaging students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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Regarding the current social state and the benefits of social distancing, this paper intends to use technology, namely mobile and web applications, to control the flow of people in institutional spaces, namely the management of students at Polytechnic Institute of Viseu. The idea is to use QR codes distributed in spaces (classrooms, libraries) so that it is possible to carry out monitoring in real-time. When a professor or student attends a specific room, information about the number of people in that location will be updated in the app. Thus, it will be possible to count the number of students present in each space and carry out the automatic registration of students’ attendance per class, removing the professor’s concern about registering them. The application will also be able to effectively control the sanitation of each space since alerts will be issued at the end of each class to the administrator of the web application. As for the web part, the responsible institution will be able to make the schedules of the different shifts available to students via the website to enroll in these shifts and access information regarding the number of people who intend to attend a specific class. In this way, it will possibly be better to manage academic sites in terms of social distance. © 2021, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.
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PURPOSE: The social distancing mandates instituted during COVID-19 pandemic mark the sudden transition in the mode of dental education's delivery to the virtual instruction. It is vital to assess students' perceptions towards virtual learning environments, particularly among those gaining education in resource-strained countries. This cross-sectional study aims to assess the perceptions of dental undergraduates towards online education, environment and transferable skills and patient care during COVID-19 in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Dental preclinical and clinical undergraduate students from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka were recruited from November 2020 to March 2021 through a 47-item web-based survey consisting of psychometrically valid subscales of Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) and Transferable Skills Questionnaire. The mean scores of students' perceptions of learning, environment, and patient care skills were compared among preclinical and clinical students of the participating countries. RESULTS: Of total 930 participants, 44.4% were from India, 26.1% from Sri Lanka and 29.5% responses from Nepal. Sri Lanka reported the highest mean scores across all domains of perception indicative of positive attitude. Clinical students from all participating countries had statistically significantly higher positive perception of transferable skills in patient care as opposed to their preclinical counterparts. On the contrary, perception towards learning was higher among preclinical students as opposed to clinical students. These differences were statistically significant for Nepal and Sri Lanka. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study underscore the need to develop and implement effective online dental educational interventions to foster academic growth and essential practical skills without compromising academic rigor and continuity in the dental education curriculum.
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Background: In response to rapid global spread of the newly emerged coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), universities transitioned to online learning and telework to decrease risks of inter-person contact. To help administrators respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and better understand its impacts, we surveyed SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among NOVA University employees and assessed community mental health. Methods: Data were collected from voluntary participants at six NOVA University locations, in the Lisbon metropolitan area, from June 15-30, 2020. All subjects provided written informed consent. Of 1,627 recruited participants (mean age 42.0 ± 12.3 years), 1,624 were tested. Prior to blood collection, participants completed a questionnaire that assessed: COVID-19 symptoms during the previous 14 days, chronic non-communicable diseases, chronic medication, anxiety, and depression symptoms. SARS-CoV-2 serology tests were then performed, and results communicated approximately 4 days after blood draw. Participants with positive serology tests were contacted to assess COVID-19 symptoms since February. Results: Estimated prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies was 3.1% (n = 50), of which 43.5% reported symptoms in the previous 4 months. The Medical School had the highest seroprevalence (6.2%). Participants reported having at least one chronic disease (63.7%), depression-like symptoms (2.1%), and anxiety symptoms (8.1%). Rates of depression and anxiety symptoms were significantly higher in women, with sleep hours and occasional alcohol consumption negatively associated with depression. Male gender, older age, and sleep hours negatively associated with anxiety symptoms. School of employment and presence of comorbidities positively associated with anxiety. Conclusion: By measuring seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among NOVA employees and assessing subjects' mental health, we aim to help administrators at European public universities in urban areas, such as Lisbon, Portugal, better understand the needs of their communities. This study resulted in implementation of a stricter contingency plan in the Medical School, while other schools continued to follow Government mitigation guidelines. These findings may also guide the development of tailored strategies to ensure physical and mental health of the academic community during this pandemic crisis. We conclude that, together with COVID-19 contingency plans, psychological support services and facilities to help people effectively face pandemic-associated challenges and minimise anxiety and depression should be implemented.