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In the post-epidemic era, the labor market has become increasingly complex, making it even more crucial to incorporate sustainability into employment demand. As we enter the post-pandemic era, a globalization trend has become more apparent. It is crucial to modernize employability through educational reform in order to assist employees in enhancing their professional skills. This study began by analyzing the importance of financial engineering practice instruction and graduate employability in the post-epidemic era. Second, the study proposed the content and a plan for inter-disciplinary teaching reform to address talent cultivation needs based on labor market requirements. Third, a face-to-face survey and interview were conducted with students affected by changes in teaching, and the results were analyzed and summarized. On this basis, the impact of education reform was evaluated using both the expert scoring method and the analytic hierarchy approach. The results indicated that the suggested financial engineering teaching reform program improved the school's discipline strength, enrollment rate, employment rate, and competition awards, especially discipline strength. This research can be used to inform the teaching of financial engineering majors in various countries, assist job candidates in enhancing their professional skills, and build a formidable talent pool for the labor market.
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BACKGROUND: In The Netherlands, physicians specialized in global health and tropical medicine (Ps-GHTM) are trained to work in low-resource settings (LRS) after their training program of 27 months. After working for a period of time in LRS, many Ps-GHTM continue their careers in the Dutch healthcare system. While there is limited evidence regarding the value of international health experience for medical students and residents, it is unknown to what extent this applies to Ps-GHTM and to their clinical practice in the Netherlands. METHODS: In this qualitative study we conducted semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) with Ps-GHTM to explore the perceived applicability of their experience abroad for their subsequent return to the Netherlands. Topic guides were developed using literature about the applicability of working abroad. Findings from the interviews served as a starting point for FGDs. The interviews and FGDs were analysed using directed content analysis. RESULTS: 15 themes are described relating experience abroad to healthcare delivery in The Netherlands: broad medical perspective, holistic perspective, adaptive communication skills, creativity, flexibility, cultural awareness, self-reliance, clinical competence, cost awareness, public health, leadership, open-mindedness, organization of care, self-development, and teamwork. Highlighting the variety in competencies and the complexity of the topic, not all themes were recognized by all respondents in the FGDs nor deemed equally relevant. Flexibility, cultural awareness and holistic perspective are examples of important benefits to work experience in LRS. CONCLUSION: Ps-GHTM bring their competencies to LRS and return to the Netherlands with additionally developed skills and knowledge. These may contribute to healthcare delivery in the Netherlands. This reciprocal value is an important factor for the sustainable development of global health. Identifying the competencies derived from work experience in LRS could give stakeholders insight into the added value of Ps-GHTM and partly help in refining the specialization program.
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Physicians , Tropical Medicine , Humans , Global Health , Clinical Competence , Delivery of Health CareABSTRACT
One of the most popular strategies to develop skills such as collaborative work, critical thinking, and problem-solving is the application of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), in which Professors from at least two universities from different countries and cultures develop a period known as "Global Classroom” (GC) in which, through the Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) approach, they solve a real challenge, using digital communication tools. This study held four-week global courses between groups from the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and groups from the Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios in Colombia. The challenges were related to two fundamental issues in sustainability: 1) Management of natural resources and climate change and 2) Biomimetics. Students were able to solve the challenges, develop skills to communicate effectively through online interaction with people from different cultures and disciplines, and use technological tools that facilitate distance learning in multicultural virtual environments. Current teaching models involve active and experiential learning, developing soft and hard skills. The GC experience is a tool that allowed continuity in the preparation of students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of GC is available to those interested as a valuable tool to provide students with the opportunity to live sustainable international experiences and promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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During the last years, the way of teaching classes was impacted by modifying almost 100% of the university courses to digital mode, this modified the academic space for the learning and development of competencies of the students, including collaborative learning. Collaborative work helps students to exchange knowledge, solving doubts between them and complementing their skills when they are solving problems or challenges. This paper presents an analysis of the development of competencies through collaborative learning using virtual communication channels. For this purpose, the following transversal competencies were evaluated: critical thinking, scientific thinking, leadership and reasoning for complexity. The question that seeks to answer this work is from the perception of the students, if their development of competencies and their performance in collaborative learning, has been affected due to the pandemic and the permanent online connection. The statistical test used was the paired t-test, since the same population was evaluated at different times, a survey was carried out on students at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester. The results showed that the lockdown situation modified the compromise of most of the students to work on teams as well as their ability to stay focused. Therefore, only the competencies that involve self-work (scientific work, reasoning of complexity) or multidisciplinary work, were increased during the lockdown. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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BACKGROUND: An International Health Elective (IHE) can be a unique learning experience for students. However, it has proven difficult to clearly define learning outcomes that capture the complexity of an IHE and are aligned with future professional performance. This study aimed to further define learning outcomes for IHEs in low- to middle-income countries (LMIC) from a student perspective. METHODS: We conducted a deductive analysis of pre-departure and post-elective reflective reports of fifth-year medical students who participated in an IHE as part of their program. This provided possible learning objectives that were further explored in semi-structured individual interviews with medical students who had recently returned from an IHE. RESULTS: We analyzed 33 reports of students participating in an IHE from 2017-2019 and held 19 interviews. Thematic analysis revealed 9 themes: developing intercultural competence, developing appreciation for differences in health care delivery systems, understanding international health, understanding the global burden of disease, developing a career perspective, developing clinical skills in resource low settings, becoming cost conscious, developing social responsibility and self-actualization. CONCLUSIONS: We identified 9 learning outcomes that are directly and indirectly related to clinical practice. They add to the on-going discourse on the benefits of IHEs. These outcomes can be further developed by investigating the perspectives of home and host supervisors and educationalists, while taking the local context into account. Follow-up studies can evaluate to what extend these outcomes are achieve during an IHE.
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Global Health , Students, Medical , Humans , Learning , Clinical Competence , Delivery of Health CareABSTRACT
The number of students of African origin traveling abroad for postgraduate engineering education has increased over the last 30 years. Studying abroad provides unique experiences and benefits for African students and the host country. These experiences place international scholars in an ideal position to reflect on the different experiences between the practices, attitudes, social diversity, and competency development they find in their new study destinations and hence can make suggestions for improvement in their home and host countries. This paper explores the experience, reflections, and adaptation of African scholars to their international educational context during the COVID pandemic, using a collaborative autoethnography methodology. Elements of the theoretical frameworks of acculturation theory and adaptability theory were used in the collection, analysis, and discussion of the paper to address the following research questions: 1) What are the experiences and perspectives of African Diaspora graduate scholars in undertaking engineering education studies in the US? 2) What improvements are suggested for the study environments in their home countries and in the US? The findings raise provocative thoughts about the culture of and the philosophies behind the present nature of instruction, assessment, student supervision, experiences, and workload in the US and African countries. We argue for a need to disrupt several realities that have become a norm for African diaspora students and suggest how this can be done drawing from our own experiences within these unique environments. © 2022 IEEE.
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COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of online teaching and learning modes. It has also abruptly changed the traditional teaching and learning methods that originally relied on physical attendance, including student internships. In-house training programs were launched by the university to offer students an alternative to their regular internships. The study is designed to investigate how university students in tourism and hospitality education perceive the usefulness of their in-house training in absence of industry placements. An exploratory methodological approach was adopted by conducting 25 semi-structured in-depth interviews with student interns to understand their experiences during the in-house training. The empirical findings revealed that the in-house program, in its current state, is not to be considered a permanent alternative for tourism and hospitality undergraduate students. The article concludes by presenting implications for educators, policymakers, and education researchers derived from the academic and practical discussions based on the findings.
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The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly disrupted nursing education, forcing schools of nursing to move from in-person to online classes while clinical sites suspended rotations. These changes jeopardized graduate nursing degree completion for Registered Nurses (RNs) at a time when they were urgently needed to practice. The aim of this initiative was to develop proficiency of Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) leadership competencies in the absence of in-person clinical experiences and ensure timely program completion. To meet this aim, an interactive virtual clinical experience was rapidly designed. A team of expert faculty integrated a blend of perspectives from academia and practice to develop an unfolding case study across the health care continuum based on the real-world trajectory of the pandemic. This innovative interactive virtual clinical resulted in achievement of the aim. The faculty closely monitored progressive development of student proficiency in leadership, quality, and safety competencies as the teams effectively navigated the rigorous demands of the healthcare system within a complex scenario. Students reported satisfaction with the interactive clinical experience and gained increased confidence in leadership, quality, and safety competencies.
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COVID-19 , Education, Nursing , Students, Nursing , Humans , Pandemics , LeadershipABSTRACT
This article presents the results of 12 semi-structured in-depth interviews with data experts from destination management organisations across Europe. The analysis revealed three overarching themes concerning the use of Big Data in the tourism sector: (1) size matters when it comes to utilising the information from Big Data sources – bigger is not perhaps better, but larger companies are more capable of harvesting the full potentials of the information;(2) companies lack the required competencies to work with Big Data strategically;and (3) one of the proposed solutions from the respondents was surprisingly a desire to share their data with the competitors thereby gaining a competitive leverage. Concluding on the above we suggest further areas for potential research: clarification of relevant competencies when working with Big Data, furthering collaboration between tourism companies to maximise the potential of sharing, and research into the effect on COVID-19 on Big Data and strategy.
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With capability training becoming ever important, our Pilot in-house developed and run program during COVID-19 delivered a comprehensive digital learning ecosystem which enabled participants to develop their digital skills and competencies. The digital learning journey empowered Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) staff to become ambassadors working in collaboration to enable their department digital plans. Building on international best practices, uplifting our engineers to become data scientists will drive direct business value in an efficient decentralized manner and cater for the ever-growing demand for digital transformation. As PDO embarks into the digital world, the program offered participants customized learning paths enabling them to utilize technology to optimize their daily operations, increase efficiency and effectiveness. Also the program enabled staff to get hands-on exposure to digital projects and what other companies in the sector add a practicing in the space of digital transformation. Hence, participants have built the required digital muscle and competencies to drive PDO digital agenda and bring value to the business. With the vision of promoting and pioneering our talent and organization as future ready, the program played a vital role in reshaping PDO's image in coping with the Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VOCA) working environment. The program started as a pilot project covering a specific number of PDO staff to build their digital competencies and experiment with various learning paths and tools. Also, the program focused on on-boarding their managers into the program to fully understand the added value of launching a 19 week program with diverse approaches to build their staff's skills. Moreover, one of the key goals of the pilot project is to test various mentorship and coaching approaches to ensure higher completion rates from all participants and cater for their technical challenges. As PDO working towards corporate digital strategy, the program is paving the way to build a robust training and competency framework, a task force capable of driving change and forward looking plans. With the successful results of the pilot, replication of the methodology and maturing the program is now being taken by PDO Information technology department to corporately build digital muscle within PDO value chain. As a result of participants' first pilot project and implementation posts evaluation assessment, the management endorsed the launch of cohort 2 for the program tackling a bigger number of staff and expanding the range of competencies to tackle in the areas of data science, machine learning and personal intelligence. One of the key learnings which was implemented in cohort 2, is building a comprehensive stakeholder map and alignment plans to ensure the right path of corporate scale beyond and benefit a bigger audience within the corporate. For example, multiple workshops and engagement sessions have been done with PDO Learning Academy and technical coaches in different departments to match the outcomes from cohort 2 and the aspiration of PDO building digital competency framework. In addition, PDO digital competency development program has aspired to build an ecosystem within the organization and in collaboration with external stakeholders like universities, e-learning platforms and technical partners to ensure sustainability of such initiatives and their scalability beyond PDO. The program sparked many conversations within the ecosystem to build collaborative teams and joint task force to investigate how we can build digital competencies for our staff and as well for startups to encourage growth from various aspects. © Copyright 2021, Society of Petroleum Engineers