ABSTRACT
Post Covid-19 education posed an equally challenging task among teachers and learners. During these times limitation on face-to-face learning and gradual emigration from full online means of instruction had become an issue worth solving. Schools opted to adapt hybrid learning modalities as a means to cope with the learning demands in this era. However, most schools are put on a disadvantage because of the required technologies to support this mode of learning. This research describes an initial design and demonstration of a portable mobile cloud network to support synchronous learning. The system was installed and tested on both a schoolwide and classroom setting. Initial results showed that the proposed system was favorable as an alternative means to hybrid learning. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
At first, the pandemic caught the world off-guard, and then the rate of change to innovate did not give many the time needed to adapt. With physical distance added to the equation of the new normal, higher education might never look the same again. For many of us, this means teaching through a new medium, higher dependence on technology, delivering live lectures to students who hide behind turned-off cameras, decreased participation, and higher performance anxiety. The new normal makes us wonder how to lead our students during these unprecedented times;how to create an active faculty presence in the courses that we teach remotely or online;and how to build student engagement without adding to the performance anxiety. This chapter aims to answer all these questions considering the practices that have repeatedly helped me establish my presence and outstanding student engagement during these unprecedented times of COVID-19. These involve the use of audio visual tools, breakout rooms, short lectures, content update, classroom games, social media and faculty branding. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The pandemic forced many education providers to pivot rapidly their models of education to increased online provision, raising concerns that this may accentuate effects of digital poverty on education. Digital footprints created by learning analytics systems contain a wealth of information about student engagement. Combining these data with student demographics can provide significant insights into the behaviours of different groups. Here we present a comparison of students' data from disadvantaged versus non-disadvantaged backgrounds on four different engagement measures. Our results showed some indications of effects of disadvantage on student engagement in a UK university, but with differential effects for asynchronously versus synchronously delivered digital material. Pre-pandemic, students from disadvantaged backgrounds attended more live teaching, watched more pre-recorded lectures, and checked out more library books than students from non-disadvantaged backgrounds. Peri-pandemic, where teaching was almost entirely online, these differences either disappeared (attendance and library book checkouts), or even reversed such that disadvantaged students viewed significantly fewer pre-recorded lectures. These findings have important implications for future research on student engagement and for institutions wishing to provide equitable opportunities to their students, both peri- and post-pandemic.
ABSTRACT
In the uncertain COVID-19 situation, professionals working in education development and learning strategies start to wonder why the situation seems strange or even tough. Institutions got involved, somehow, in online teaching delivery. Most post-secondary institutions worldwide began to use virtual learning or remote synchronous delivery (RSD) as the most applicable method to keep a connection with students in a social-distancing situation. It might be too early to rush to drive solutions or summarize conclusions. The key point is to reach for expressive questions that describe and evaluate the situation in interior design education - an advanced step in the diagnosis of the current situation. This chapter investigates how the current pandemic situation affected teaching methods in the Bachelor of Interior Design (BID) program at University X. The chapter explores remote synchronous delivery in this program with a focus on three core interior design streams: studio, visual communication, and software and technology. As a response to crisis situations, the chapter begins to answer these questions: How did remote synchronous delivery affect interior design education? How can we be prepared for advanced teaching approaches? Will this pandemic lead to innovative approaches in interior design teaching pedagogy? © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this instrumental case study was to examine preservice music educators' perceptions of teaching voice lessons to elementary and secondary students during an online synchronous fieldwork experience. I used Garrison et al.'s Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to analyze the participants' perceptions of cognitive presence (i.e., triggering events, exploration, integration, and resolution), social presence (i.e., emotional expression, open communication, and group cohesion), and teaching presence (i.e., structure and design of the fieldwork experience). During initial lessons, participants cited mostly triggering events and exploration, which occurred alongside indicators of social presence. Participants cited technological challenges associated with online synchronous learning (i.e., teaching presence) may have hindered instances of integration and resolution. Music teacher educators may consider using the CoI framework to structure collaborative and supportive online synchronous fieldwork experiences.
ABSTRACT
Teamwork is usually a component of the learning assessment framework of online courses, and the timely sharing of information and feedback through synchronous communication is beneficial for team-based assignments. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, university students did not always actively engage in virtual teamwork in online environments because they were learning from home and were subject to the effect of disruptions at home. This study explored the perceptions of university students who engaged in synchronous discussions involving teamwork during the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 25 Taiwanese university students. Through qualitative methods that incorporated individual interviews and a content analysis, six content concepts were established. Afterward, relational content analysis was conducted. This study revealed that the students benefited from visible synchronous discussions in terms of inquiry dialogue, project creation, and learning satisfaction. Notably, the interviewees mostly did not switch on their webcams but recognized that webcam use can benefit discussions. The participants' decision to switch on/off their webcams was primarily influenced by their perception of the importance of a given project than by their privacy concerns. Moreover, when home-based leaning was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, group leaders encountered an obstruction when they were guiding their group members to engage in teamwork involving physical tasks. Future studies should explore how members should be guided to engage in teamwork involving physical tasks during synchronous discussions.
ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how to integrate synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC)-based virtual exchanges into coursework in teacher preparation programs in higher education. During their 6-week virtual exchange, participants met with partner(s) to discuss their ideas about the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition to recording their SCMC sessions, participants also completed online worksheets to reflect on their SDG discussion. By focusing on creating activities that coincide with the United Nations' SDGs in a virtual exchange, results showed that participants raised their awareness about the SDGs and created a critically sensitive critical lens, which impacted their learning. In addition to developing content knowledge, these programs were able to internationalize the higher education curriculum through virtual exchange. Students were able to discover things about themselves, their partners, their coursework, and the SDGs with "new eyes." With the recent rush to digital transformation caused by COVID-19, synchronous virtual exchange programs appear to be even more valuable as collaborative learning models. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Since the first study on computer-mediated communication tools in support of language learning was published in 1992, asynchronous and synchronous tools have been widely adopted;however, few reviews have been conducted to explore the research status in this field. As COVID-19 has increased the use of online tools in education, the need to understand how asynchronous and synchronous tools are being used in language education has grown. In this bibliometric analysis, we reviewed asynchronous and synchronous online language learning (ASOLL) by analyzing the trends, topics, and findings of 319 articles on ASOLL. The results indicate that interest in ASOLL has increased over the past three decades with ASOLL for oral proficiency development and collaborative ASOLL being the two main research issues. Interest in three topics collaborative ASOLL, emotions, and corrective feedback - was especially apparent. The review contributes to the understanding of ASOLL while providing practical implications for using information communication technologies to enhance language learning.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted various aspects of our lives causing economic, social and psychological challenges all around the world. A sector that immediately responded to this unprecedented change was education, which migrated to online platforms. This study explored the attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of a group of students participating in an emergency blended synchronous learning model during the pandemic in Northern Cyprus. The study adopted a qualitative study by surveying a group of 68 undergraduate students' experiences through analysing their reflective accounts regarding the instructional mode of education that they received over the fall academic semester in 2020. The results of the study indicated that the new mode of instruction adopted in the context of the study not only presented technological, social, and psychological challenges for the students but also provided them with various learning opportunities and options during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of the study offer some implications for the use of technology in education in general and language teaching in particular. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Africa Education Review is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
New advancements emerge in times of crisis. Throughout history, there have always been new developments in our political, social, and economic structures and technologies after wars, revolutions, and major natural disasters. Now, in times of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021, it is critical for both educators and learners to adapt to different and new ways of learning, to stay ahead of the latest technologies and applications, and to empower our learners in transitioning to the new age of artificial intelligence. The case study that follows describes how our university in Canada transitioned from on-campus classes to remote synchronous delivery with an online asynchronous component during the COVID-19 period of campus closures. Comparison of this transition is made to other postsecondary contexts to highlight how such critical transitions may be eased in the future. The closure of universities in Canada and the move to online delivery happened abruptly as COVID-19 worsened and forced us to teach from our offices at home in mid-March 2020. I explain the teaching solutions that I found useful in transitioning my students to remote synchronous and online delivery. In addition to describing changes in our teaching and learning, I compare our experiences during this transition to other contexts and postsecondary classes to illustrate how and why preparation and adaptations are important. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
We faced the challenge of a rapid transition of our university on campus programs, professors, and students to remote synchronous delivery (RSD) via virtual classrooms as the COVID-19 pandemic closed our campuses. Like Alice in Wonderland and her creature colleagues as they struggled their way across the pool of tears, many post-secondary educators anguished at the sea of challenges before us as we faced this abrupt shift to remote synchronous delivery (RSD). Required to work online from our home offices, professors began to explore teaching via video conferencing platforms like Zoom. We paused to briefly take stock and plan a course of action. It seemed as if we could possibly reach the brink of mayhem in attempting this transition en masse within two to three short weeks. How would this transition proceed and what professional development workshops and webinars would assist - especially for instructors who had not taught extensively before via RSD and video conferencing platforms? In my role as Associate Dean for Faculty Development at a medium-sized university in Canada, I seized upon the tried and true "process-content approach" as our solution - that is, having our professors experience and do RSD learning themselves as they discussed how to teach remotely. This chapter explains this approach and describes how to do such transitional workshops in an educative and efficient way. We found that "...the best way to explain it is to do it" (Carroll, 2000). © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in countless changes to daily life. This has included the move to emergency remote learning for PreK-12 and post-secondary education around the world. The impact of COVID-19 resulted in extensive periods of emergency synchronous teaching and learning, with the distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms. Many institutions adjusted their traditional instructional format to synchronous online instruction in early Spring, 2020 semester. To better understand the impact of transformative modes of instructions on the learning process and to investigate factors that may affect the effectiveness of synchronous online instruction and serve as input to instructional process improvements in the future, surveys were conducted in three phases: phase I: during the second and third week after all F2F courses were transformed to synchronous online instruction in March, 2020;phase II: during the last week of the Spring semester 2020;and phase III: in the middle of Spring, 2021 semester. The surveys set out to measure students' perceived satisfaction and effectiveness of synchronous learning experiences and to capture the underlying factors that contribute to the perceived satisfaction levels as they gained more experiences with the synchronous online learning process. The results show students overwhelmingly prefer being in a physical classroom when they first transformed to synchronous instruction mode in Spring, 2020. However, after one year's practice with the synchronous online instruction, almost all dimensions observed in this study have been changed significantly, including satisfaction with the synchronous online instruction, perceived grade, interaction, comprehension of learning contents, engagement and perceived learning outcomes. © 2022 International Association for Computer Information Systems
ABSTRACT
This study, informed by experiential learning and constructivist theories of learning, aims to examine online asynchronous and synchronous education in postsecondary contexts during the COVID-19 pandemic and offer recommendations for improving online teaching and learning. The COVID-19 pandemic has had educational impacts on student life, one being the physical closure of educational institutions. 26% of respondents in a recent study (Learning Disruptions, 2020) had some of their courses postponed or canceled. Almost all participants had some (17%) or all (75%) of their courses subsequently offered online. These numbers imply the popularity of online education as an alternative for face-to-face classes during the pandemic. Online learning seems a reasonable replacement for face-to-face instruction. However, students who lack appropriate tools - such as broadband Internet or no suitable home environment for remote learning - can find online learning challenging (Learning Disruptions, 2020). The studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in postsecondary contexts have tended to examine financial aspects (Measuring COVID-19's Impact, 2020), medical education (Ferrel & Ryan, 2020), and students and staff's health (Sahu, 2020). Little attention seems to be paid to the impact of COVID-19 on the quality of online teaching and learning. While the previous studies illuminate important issues, the need for investigating the quality of online education during the pandemic is felt. To bridge this gap, the study herein aims to examine online asynchronous and synchronous education in postsecondary contexts during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter reviews the literature on teaching and learning during the pandemic;then the authors' teaching experiences in four General Studies and two Interior Design classes are presented. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations offered. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
The start of a new decade, 2020, was filled with many global issues but none as profound as the COVID-19 pandemic. North America watched the crisis unfold half the world away with little inkling that in a matter of weeks it would impact how we live, work, and educate. This chapter focuses on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the way undergraduate programing is delivered at a private for-profit university. The new adapted model mimics the face-to-face classroom experience via video-conferencing live online sessions platform. This model is called remote synchronous delivery (RSD). This narrative vignette describes the RSD model in hopes of making sense and learning from this rapid development of a third space. The vignette considers the impact of the RSD model on students, faculty, curriculum, and the live online sessions platform. Evaluating the implications of RSD creates the space for reflection of other delivery models such as online courses, hybrid, and even the traditional face-to-face classroom experience. The chapter concludes with lessons learned and future implications. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Telemedicine has played a vital role in providing psychiatric treatment to patients during the rapid transition of services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the use of telemedicine is expected to expand within the psychiatric field. The efficacy of telemedicine is well described in scientific literature. However, there is a need for a comprehensive quantitative review that analyzes and considers the different clinical outcomes and psychiatric diagnoses. OBJECTIVE: This paper aimed to assess whether individual psychiatric outpatient treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders in adults using telemedicine is equivalent to in-person treatment. METHODS: A systematic search of randomized controlled trials was conducted using recognized databases for this review. Overall, 4 outcomes were assessed: treatment efficacy, levels of patient satisfaction, working alliance, and attrition rate. The inverse-variance method was used to summarize the effect size for each outcome. RESULTS: A total of 7414 records were identified, and 20 trials were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. The trials included posttraumatic stress disorder (9 trials), depressive disorder (6 trials), a mix of different disorders (4 trials), and general anxiety disorder (1 trial). Overall, the analyses yielded evidence that telemedicine is comparable with in-person treatment regarding treatment efficacy (standardized mean difference -0.01, 95% CI -0.12 to 0.09; P=.84; I2=19%, 17 trials, n=1814), patient satisfaction mean difference (-0.66, 95% CI -1.60 to 0.28; P=.17; I2=44%, 6 trials, n=591), and attrition rates (risk ratio 1.07, 95% CI 0.94-1.21; P=.32; I2=0%, 20 trials, n=2804). The results also indicated that the working alliance between telemedicine and in-person modalities was comparable, but the heterogeneity was substantial to considerable (mean difference 0.95, 95% CI -0.47 to 2.38; P=.19; I2=75%, 6 trials, n=539). CONCLUSIONS: This meta-analysis provided new knowledge on individual telemedicine interventions that were considered equivalent to in-person treatment regarding efficacy, patient satisfaction, working alliance, and attrition rates across diagnoses. The certainty of the evidence regarding efficacy was rated as moderate. Furthermore, high-quality randomized controlled trials are needed to strengthen the evidence base for treatment provided via telemedicine in psychiatry, particularly for personality disorders and a range of anxiety disorders where there is a lack of studies. Individual patient data meta-analysis is suggested for future studies to personalize telemedicine. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42021256357; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=256357.
ABSTRACT
Technological advances and COVID-19 have led to expedited technology use and online learning in higher education. Increased technology use and online learning have led individuals to either adapt or experience technostress. Higher education is a ripe context for technostress to occur, especially for students, since many courses are being offered in a hybrid and/or synchronous online format due to COVID-19. Students have often been required and/or encouraged to use multiple technologies, especially webcams, during online courses. Thus, this study explores the technostress students could be experiencing from requested webcam use as well as potential influencers and outcomes of technostress for students via exploring factors from Davis's [Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319-340] technology acceptance model in a new proposed model. Results indicated the model was a significant predictor for digital skills, perceived ease of use, technostress, and cognitive learning for students being required or not required to use webcams. Implications for researchers and instructors as well as future research directions are discussed.
ABSTRACT
At a public, 4-year, open access university, students were given the choice of how they would attend class: face-to-face, online, or livestream (synchronous session in Microsoft Teams®). The 876 students in this study registered in course sections designated as face-to-face delivery yet were provided attendance flexibility due to the pandemic. This unique situation provided a research opportunity to explore the self-regulatory, motivational, and contextual factors that affected students' attendance choices as well as their academic outcomes (pass/withdrawal) and perceptions of satisfaction. Results showed that 70% of students took advantage of the opportunity to flex and strongly valued the convenience, choice, and time savings. They were satisfied with connections to instructors. They were less satisfied with connections to peers, fluency between attendance modes, and technology performance. Generally, students performed well in the HyFlex courses with pass rates and withdrawal rates of 88% and 2%, respectively, for both Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 terms. The students who were most likely to flex were first year students who lived more than 15 miles from campus; first year students comprised a disproportionately large portion of those who failed. Self-regulatory and motivational factors were explored in relation to attendance decisions. Besides COVID-related issues and work/life balance, a sizable percentage (13%) of students explained their attendance decisions in terms of quality of their learning and in this way demonstrated self-regulation. Motivation was an issue for 17% of the students, typically expressed as not attending in the way they learned best or skipping class.
ABSTRACT
In overcoming the obstacles of online learning with the current Covid-19 pandemic crisis, synchronous and asynchronous learning has been a significant part of teaching strategies applied by educators to construct a collaborative online environment with Malaysian university students. Synchronous learning has always been the most effective strategy for social learning, while asynchronous learning allows students to learn on their own schedule. Moreover, despite having many educational platforms created for higher educational settings, the practicality of selection between two teaching-learning approaches of text-presentation and video is still a debate among teachers/ lecturers with students' learning styles. Therefore, this paper explored Malaysian university students' preferences between synchronous and asynchronous learning modes with text-presentation or video. Qualitative and quantitative data from 178 participants from both public and private universities were collected via open and close-ended questions in the designed questionnaire. The findings indicated that 68% of the students preferred synchronous learning mode compared to asynchronous. Meanwhile, 39% of the students favoured both text-presentation and video learning tools to be implemented in synchronous and asynchronous approaches as it provided them better opportunities to grasp the learning content better. Thus, it can be concluded that the synchronous learning mode is preferred if only one method is provided as the students highly value the teacher's presence for ease of communication, but students prefer a range of delivery methods. Moreover, the students also displayed a strong preference for applying both text-presentation and video to achieve their learning outcomes. Thus, it is suggested that the university lecturers need to explore and apply interactive pedagogical methods in online teaching-learning process, while contributing to the development of motivation, participation, and engagement among the university students in acquiring their subjects. As such, the findings of this study have informed the pedagogical implications, and further studies are mandatory.
ABSTRACT
Adherence to sustainable development in higher education rests on the assessment of students' academic attainment, especially during unexpected environmental changes, such as the sudden move from face-to-face to online courses during the recent pandemic. Most studies devoted to this issue have compared students' performance online with that of face-to-face courses before the pandemic, tallying together a variety of courses, often from specific disciplines. Besides their mixed results and generality, such studies do not address the issue of students' adjustment to the post-pandemic learning environment. The present retrospective case study offered a simple evidence-based model for educators to measure the relationship between environmental changes and students' behavior for self-reflection and adjustment. It examined students' academic attainment (as measured by grades) within a broader timeframe, including courses taught by the same instructors face-to-face before and after the pandemic and online during the pandemic. Specific courses of the general education curriculum were selected to include a broad spectrum of students. The study then assessed whether students' activities before, during, and after the pandemic predicted summative assessment performance (i.e., final exam grades) differently. In this study, performance differences were recorded, usually in favor of post-pandemic face-to-face classes. Midterm examinations were the best predictors of final exam grades irrespective of the modality of instruction and timeframe. Implications and applications of the methodology used and the results obtained were considered.
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Billing and coding of telerheumatology encounter types has become more complex, as opportunities to provide telerheumatology services have expanded, with a major increase due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter provides an overview of telerheumatology billing and coding prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It outlines how geographic criteria for providing telerheumatology care have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies specific billing codes, and criteria for their use, which are most relevant to rheumatology care teams. These include discussions of synchronous audio and visual encounters, audio-only encounters, E-visits, virtual check-ins, and interprofessional electronic consults (also known as eConsults). We discuss modifiers and place of service codes which may be required, as well as telehealth codes which may be used by nonphysician members of a rheumatology care team, such as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. Finally, this chapter compares payment policies between Medicare and commercial payers, and briefly looks toward possible future trends in telerheumatology coverage policies. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022. All rights reserved.