Approaches to Promoting Student Engagement in Organic Chemistry Before, During, and After the COVID-19 Pandemic: Insights and Reflections

Active engagement is critical to student success in Organic Chemistry. In this paper, I trace the trajectory of student engagement in an introductory organic chemistry lecture series over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. I detail my approach to cultivating student engagement in an online environment, evaluate the success of these approaches and discuss modifications, and recount our efforts to combat the "learned disengagement” that students exhibited upon returning to an in-person class format. Although engagement gradually dwindled over the course of online instruction, multiple interventions succeeded in maintaining a sense of classroom community in students and encouraging active participation. By building opportunities for engagement into the course structure and rewarding students who partake in class activities, I hope to once again enjoy the level of engagement that we had prior to the pandemic. © 2022 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

Reflective and decisive supervision: The role of participative leadership and team climate in joint decision-making

Supervisory bodies can intervene in organizational practices that may harm society, but their effectiveness to do so depends on their ability to make decisions reflectively and decisively. Are these tendencies incompatible with each other or can they go together? Can empowering leadership (i.e. participative, coaching, informing behaviors) stimulate reflectiveness and decisiveness? A 10-item Joint Decision-Making Questionnaire was developed and tested among supervisory officers (N = 87) and supervisory board members (N = 158). Reflectiveness and decisiveness were positively correlated, indicating that these tendencies can be reconciled in joint decision-making (Study 1). An examination of 44 supervisory teams further revealed that participative leadership relates to more reflectiveness and decisiveness, via cooperative trust and goal commitment (Study 2). Moreover, teams that experienced this team climate prior to COVID-19 reported that they acted more reflectively and decisively during this crisis (Study 3). Hence, participative leaders can foster reflectiveness and decisiveness, by promoting cooperative trust and goal commitment. © 2021 The Authors. Regulation & Governance published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Impact of extended interval dosing of immune checkpoint inhibitors in lung cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background The COVID 19-pandemic has led physicians to change their approach to treating non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to reduce hospital stays for patients. Objectives We aimed to assess the toxicity and efficacy of extended interval (EI) dosing of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) compared to standard dosing (SD). Methods In this retrospective two-center study, we included patients with stage III/IV NSCLC who were treated with ICIs with or without maintenance pemetrexed during the month before March 2020. Adverse events and efficacy were collected until June 2021. Toxicity and survival were assessed using multivariate Cox models. Results Among the 134 patients identified (8 stage III and 126 stage IV;66 first line and 60 second or subsequent lines), 70.9% received EI dosing. In the EI group, 12.6% of patients developed grade 3 or 4 immune-related adverse events versus 15.4% in the SD group (P- value = 0.8). Treatment was definitively discontinued due to toxicity in 9 patients in the EI group and in 5 in the SD group (P-value =0.5). Overall survival was not associated with dosage regimen or toxicity analyzed as a time-dependent variable. Conclusions Our study suggests that EI dosing of ICIs did not affect toxicity and overall survival in lung cancer patients.

Climate change and infectious disease: A prologue on multidisciplinary cooperation and predictive analytics.

Climate change impacts global ecosystems at the interface of infectious disease agents and hosts and vectors for animals, humans, and plants. The climate is changing, and the impacts are complex, with multifaceted effects. In addition to connecting climate change and infectious diseases, we aim to draw attention to the challenges of working across multiple disciplines. Doing this requires concentrated efforts in a variety of areas to advance the technological state of the art and at the same time implement ideas and explain to the everyday citizen what is happening. The world's experience with COVID-19 has revealed many gaps in our past approaches to anticipating emerging infectious diseases. Most approaches to predicting outbreaks and identifying emerging microbes of major consequence have been with those causing high morbidity and mortality in humans and animals. These lagging indicators offer limited ability to prevent disease spillover and amplifications in new hosts. Leading indicators and novel approaches are more valuable and now feasible, with multidisciplinary approaches also within our grasp to provide links to disease predictions through holistic monitoring of micro and macro ecological changes. In this commentary, we describe niches for climate change and infectious diseases as well as overarching themes for the important role of collaborative team science, predictive analytics, and biosecurity. With a multidisciplinary cooperative "all call," we can enhance our ability to engage and resolve current and emerging problems.

How Partial Anonymity May Reduce Students' Anxiety During Remote Active Learning─A Case Study Using Clubhouse

Active learning, a common practice in higher education, has been shown to promote higher order thinking and skills. Class discussions have been chosen to be the medium to incorporate active learning in schools‘ curriculum. However, the rate of class participation could be low for certain courses. Literature has shown that the fear of negative evaluation from peers is the most common reason as to why students choose not to partake in class discussions. Anonymity via clickers or applications such as Kahoot! has shown to be useful in reducing students' anxiety and increasing class participations. However, this is not a viable method to employ if vocal discussion is required for the course. Here, partial anonymity (voice only), Speak Your Mind, was applied into an environmental chemistry course with 20 students in the National University of Singapore (NUS) to study its correlation with students‘ anxiety and class participation. Participants survey results suggested that a reason for not participating in class discussions was the fear of being judged by their peers. Remote learning was conducted due to COVID-19 and partial anonymity was obtained by a proxy application: Clubhouse. This application allowed students to partake in a podium discussion while maintaining psychological safety via partial anonymity. Participants survey responses indicated that partial anonymity reduced their anxiety (Cohen's d = 0.58) and slightly increased their self-reported class participation rate (Cohen's d = 0.21);it was noted that partial anonymity did not have much effect on their fears of being judged if they provided the wrong answer (Cohen's d = 0.11). © 2023 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

COLLABORATIVE HOUSING AND OLDER PERSONS

Increasing life expectancy has important consequences for the economic growth, the budgetary stability, the health care, the long-term care, the welfare, and the social cohesion. The current moment is crucial to strike a balance between sustainable solutions for the social safety net the reinforcement of solidarity and intergenerational justice, and the accessibility of decent housing adapted to the new needs of the elderly. The crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the loneliness of older people, to which health problems, unfavourable economic conditions, and lack of accessibility to housing are the major contributory factors. There are currently numerous initiatives that seek to organise housing (for the elderly or intergenerational). which we will address from the perspective of housing cooperatives or collaborative housing and financing proposals, with a special reference to the Valencian situation. © 2022 Malaysian Journal of Chemistry.All rights reserved.

Non-cooperative strategies in American political dialogic discourse (based on the press briefing genre)

The article presents results of analyzing the strategic dimension of dialogic discourse, with focus on non-cooperative communicative strategies employed by dialogue participants. The term "non-cooperative strategy" in this study is defined in a broad sense, namely, as a communicative strategy associated with a violation of principles underlying successful communicative cooperation, but not necessarily related to hostile rhetoric. In the present research, identifying non-cooperative strategies was based on Grice's cooperative principle and Leech's politeness principle. The analysis of dialogic discourse relied on Baranov and Kreydlin's concept of illocutionary necessitation which characterizes the relationship between utterances in a dialogue and suggests distinguishing between necessitating and necessitated dialogue utterances. Transcripts of press briefings held by Donald Trump and members of the Coronavirus Task Force in April 2020 were used as data for the research. A total of 10 press briefing transcripts were analyzed. The relevance of the study is due to the trend towards "legitimization" of verbal aggression, noted by some researchers of American political discourse. The article describes the most representative non-cooperative strategies revealed in the discourses under analysis, namely shifting the topic, logorrhea, ignoring, accusation, biting remark, reproach, control over the situation, delegitimization and objection. The study found that the functioning of some of the described strategies has a specific limitation in terms of the utterance type. Thus, the strategies of shifting the topic, ignoring and objection are confined to a necessitated utterance, while the strategies of accusation, biting remark, reproach, control over the situation and delegitimization can be implemented in both necessitating and necessitated utterances. Based on this finding, it is proposed to distinguish between bound and free non-cooperative strategies in dialogic discourse. The results of the study enrich the theory of dialogue by suggesting a typology of strategies for non-cooperative dialogic interaction based on the notion of illocutionary necessitation. Further scientific inquiry into communicative strategies in dialogic discourse will allow clarifying and expanding the conclusions drawn about the functional dependence of dialogic discourse strategies on the utterance type and about the possibility of distinguishing between bound and free strategies in dialogic interaction.

The Impact of Cooperative Behavior between Social Organizations during the COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak in Shanghai: A Simulation Approach.

In 2022, a new outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic created considerable challenges for the Shanghai public health system. However, conventional prevention and control strategies, which only rely on formal organizations, inefficiently decrease the number of infections. Thus, a multi-organization management mode is needed for pandemic prevention. In this paper, we applied a stochastic actor-oriented model (SAOM) to analyze how these social organizations cooperate with others and further identify the mechanism that drives them to create a reliable and sustainable cooperative relationship network from the perspective of social network analysis. The model allowed us to assess the effects of the actor's attributes, the network structure, and dynamic cooperative behavior in RSiena with longitudinal data collected from 220 participants in 19 social organizations. The results indicated that the number of cooperative relationships increased during the pandemic, from 44 to 162, which means the network between social organizations became more reliable. Furthermore, all the hypotheses set in four sub-models were significant (t-ratio < 0.1, overall max t-ratio < 0.25, and e/s > 2). Additionally, the estimated values showed that four factors played a positive role in forming the cooperative relationship network, i.e., all except the "same age group effect (−1.02)". The results also indicated that the social organizations tend to build relationships with more active actors in the community in every time period. This paper is of great significance regarding the innovation of public health system management and the improvement of Chinese grassroots governance.

Online argumentation-based learning aided by digital concept mapping during COVID-19: implications for health management teaching and learning

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected educational systems worldwide, forcing them to abruptly shift from face-to-face to online teaching and learning. This case study illustrates how a traditional lecture-based activity for undergraduate students in a Management of Health Service Organizations program was transformed into an argumentation-based learning activity using the technique of digital concept mapping and was deployed in an online format during the COVID-19 lockdown. Design/methodology/approach: The students were tasked with solving an ill-structured problem bearing significance for their future professional lives and connected to the contents of their course (entitled "Assimilation of service quality in health systems"). The activity was composed of two phases. In Phase 1, participants were asked to provide five arguments to establish their proposed solution to the problem by using a concept map on a digital platform (Mindomo). In Phase 2, they were asked to substantiate their arguments. Reflective journals were used to ascertain how the participants viewed the activity. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data by searching for themes demonstrating different epistemological positions. Findings: Six themes were inductively derived from the students' reflections: (1) transitioning from passive to active learning, (2) generating epistemic change, (3) social perspective-taking, (4) domain-based knowledge, (5) prior knowledge and experience, and (6) online collaboration with other students. Episodes, thoughts and feelings expressed by the students were reported so as to increase the reliability of the recurrent and common themes. Originality/value: This study mainly shows that combining constructivist teaching and learning tools with advanced technology in an online course enables the development of lifelong learning capabilities among students in the health management professions.

Addressing the COVID-19 Pandemic in Introductory Psychology Using the Jigsaw Method Adapted for Remote Learning

People's ability to evaluate scientific research is important to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. STEM educators can use the pandemic to frame instruction of scientific literacy and critical-thinking skills. In a small pilot introductory psychology course taught online in spring 2021, we created jigsaw-style modules organized around real-world applications of psychological research in which students applied results from empirical papers to address current issues and integrated their findings into group projects. In this article, we discuss a module focusing on how children's development might be impacted by different COVID-19 pandemic school opening policies. We found that students successfully applied empirical results to inform approaches to public policy. Our experience can offer guidance to future STEM instructors incorporating current events into course content to support student learning in a virtual learning environment.

Learning Creates Australia: Evaluation of the Learner's Journey Social Lab. Research Report. RR-A1139-1

Social labs have recently been gaining traction in a wide range of sectors internationally, and have been applied to many complex social problems, including food system security, poverty and labour market revitalisation. Social labs convene participants to collaborate and work collectively on developing prototypes that are iteratively refined and improved. Ultimately, social labs aspire to make macro-level changes that address a core problem. Learning Creates Australia (LCAust) launched in 2020 just prior to the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with the objective of convening an alliance of people and organisations that could systematically reform the Australian education system to ensure that all young Australians have opportunities to learn and develop the knowledge, skills and competencies that will enable them to become successful in school, find productive employment and actively engage in their communities. LCAust invited the RAND Corporation to conduct a mixed-methods evaluation study that would offer formative feedback to the social lab implementation team and ultimately provide a summative assessment of the progress of the organisation over the first phase of its work. RAND sought to address three research questions in this evaluation: (1) How were the social labs designed and implemented to solve persistent problems of practice?, (2) What factors enabled or constrained implementation?, and (3) To what extent did LCAust's Phase I activities lay the groundwork for systemic impact? This report details findings from this evaluation. [This report was sponsored by Learning Creates Australia. This report was also prepared by RAND Australia.]

Supporting Student Collaboration in Online Breakout Rooms through Interactive Group Activities

Many instructors globally reported a lack of engagement in synchronous online sessions during the COVID-19 lockdowns. This article outlines the use of collaborative small group tasks mediated via breakout rooms in Teams during the 2020/21 academic year. The rationale for the activities, which are available for download, is described along with details of the evaluation of their impact. Key findings were that a majority of students reported enjoying the tasks and felt that they improved their learning during online sessions.

The Implementation of Group Investigation E-Task in Activities Learning (GIETAL) in Higher Education

This study aimed to implement a learning model developed by the Group Investigation E-Task in Activities Learning (GIETAL) model for theoretical learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The learning process that previously used conventional methods has been changed to online learning. For this reason, a practical and effective learning model is needed for students in higher education. The method used was the GIETAL model founded on the ADDIE method. The data processed after implementing this model were from the respondents consisting of 54 students of two lecturers. The results of testing the practicality of this study had a practical level of 86.66%. It could be concluded that the GIETAL Model is beneficial in teaching Database Design courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this implemented learning model was proven to improve student learning outcomes effectively, this was underlined by 51 students (94.44%) graduating and passing the minimum criteria set in the semester learning plan. This research's final result was implementing a practical and effective GIETAL learning model for university students.

Teaching Practicum during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparison of the Practices in Different Countries

Today, many countries ensure that student teachers get into the real classrooms, practice in there, spend more time and translate theoretical knowledge into practice in schools during Initial Teacher Education. So that they can receive stronger support in the practicum process, and they can develop themselves. However, schools have been closed in so many countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic preventions. Therefore, countries have rearranged the teaching practicum process. The aim of this study, which was carried out with a systematic review, is to comparatively examine the teaching practicum processes of different countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. With a systematic review made according to certain criteria, teaching practicum in the COVID-19 in the countries of Australia, Canada (Ontario State), England, Greece, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Portugal, South Africa, Turkey, the United States of America (New York State) and Zimbabwe were examined. According to the findings, it has been seen that some countries have removed or stretched the teaching practicum requirement during the COVID-19, while some countries have carried out online teaching practicum (i) in K-12 schools, (ii) with peer learning, or (iii) using VR technology, and one country re-opened the schools after a short closure.

Engaging Novice Writers in Online Collaborative Review through Peer-Review Circles

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this article presents online Peer-Review Circles (PRC) as an innovative and collaborative approach to academic writing, mainly proofreading and copy-editing processes. It aims to engage novice second language (L2) writers in online joint review and increase their understanding of pre-reviewing scholarly papers before submission. The authors had observed that a large number of doctoral students are still considered novice writers. Therefore, there was a need for a practical approach to improve their review skills and engage them in online PRC activities. Grounded in Monologue-Dialogue-Discussion (MDD) Circles (Manning & Jobbitt, 2018), this article extends its potential to be adopted and used beyond the classroom and mandatory ELT contexts. MDD requires three consecutive stages: 1) primary reviewer's monologue, 2) primary and secondary reviewer's dialogue, and 3) writer and the reviewers perform a group discussion. These activities will help the writers to look after the manuscripts simultaneously from a PRC perspective. We also developed peer review Feedback Questions (FQs) to guide the reviewers to perform meaningful discussions. The output of the PRCs will likely be an initial review or a pre-evaluation process to improve the manuscript quality, readability, and publishability.

"I Did Not Sign Up for This": Student Experiences of the Rapid Shift from In-Person to Emergency Virtual Remote Learning during the COVID Pandemic

Objectives: The main objective of this study was to explore students' experiences of the emergency virtual remote teaching, which was implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: 439 students enrolled at a community college in Canada responded to a survey that had Likert-scale and open-ended questions. Anderson's model for online learning was used as an analytic lens to gain insight on student experiences. Descriptive statistics were used to make meaning of the data. Thematic analysis was done on student responses to open-ended questions. Results: Findings were organized according to Anderson's six factors in online teaching, namely: (a) Independent Study, (b) Peer, Family, & Professional Support, (c) Structured Learning Resources, (d) Community of Inquiry, (e) Communication, and (f) Paced, Collaborative Learning. The study revealed both challenges and opportunities that students experienced during their transition to emergency virtual remote learning. Conclusions: The invitation to students to share what worked--and what didn't--yielded a wealth of specific suggestions for engaging students, promoting accountability, and supporting collaborative learning. Implication for Practice: This study looked past anticipated pressure points to reveal critical teaching factors that challenge--or enable--students as they transition to emergency virtual remote teaching. Post-secondary instructors would be well served to consider how they promote self-efficacy, provide access to supports, fashion an online learning environment, develop community, communicate expectations, and encourage collaboration.

Collaborative Online International Learning Classes to Enhance Co-Creation in Canada and Japan

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) globally accelerated distance learning. Students who wish to create new businesses pursue collaborative learning in a cross-cultural environment. However, the research on the effect of collaborative learning on such courses is scant. This study investigated the changes in students' entrepreneurial competencies and cross-cultural knowledge, skills, and abilities before and after participating in an online global career course and the differences between students from three Canadian universities and a Japanese university in collaborative online international learning (COIL). Survey data were collected from June to August 2021, before and after the course, from 33 participants. The questionnaire survey was based on the five main categories of knowledge, problem-solving skills, communication skills, cross-cultural understanding and teamwork skills, and confidence and motivation. The results revealed statistically significant differences in all the categories before and after the course. Considering the effect sizes, all five categories except for confidence and motivation improved following the course, showing that both the individual and the collaborative learning in the course design worked well in the COIL approach. Although most of the students lacked a business background, they could understand the basic frameworks for business planning through self-study in the asynchronous sessions and considered the tasks and solutions in the synchronous collaboration stage. Furthermore, the students from the Canadian universities performed well in all five categories and the students from the Japanese university performed well in four categories. Considering the budget and accessibility, students' learning outcomes in COIL have a positive effect on their understanding of global careers.

The Post-Pandemic Effects of Distance Education on Business Students: A Review of Expert Reports

The period following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic presented monumental challenges to education systems around the world. In the United States, the unique effects experienced by business students due to the rapid adoption of distance teaching methods resulted in significant changes in the students' learning environments. Using expert reports published in the media, this article systematically reviews the pattern of student experience cited by experts, and identifies six disruptive effects. Furthermore, the disruptive nature of the changes is contrasted with earlier historical contexts in which distance business education had been deployed to overcome societal challenges. The article concludes with a discussion of expected changes resulting from the massive deployment of distance education methods among business schools in the post-pandemic era.

Second Life in Art and Design from Students' Perspective: A Case Study

This article tried to determine the students' opininons related to the use of Second Life (SL) application in higher education art and design education. In this case study conducted with 17 students selected via typical case sampling, the SL virtual platform was used as a research area. Data collection tools were included document analysis, self-peer-process assessment, focus groups. Research data were analyzed with content analysis. Participants stated that the use of SL application in art and design education provides support for analysis of 3D programs, virtual exhibition opportunities and simple 3D modeling. Internet speed, slowness of computers, technical and build problems were the common difficulties experienced by the participants. Consequently, the participants' application skills, 3D thinking skills, design skills and creativity during the practise of the SL application improved. Despite some technical difficulties in understanding SL, it is thought that SL is a suitable environment for art and design education. Also, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most of the education activities, are conducted on virtual environments. Therefore, it is thought that SL will contribute to distance education by online learning.

Learning at a Distance: Can At-Home Activities Measure Up?

Due to the global pandemic, many traditionally face-to-face courses had to transfer to online teaching. We, like many others, were faced with the challenge of replicating online our purposefully-designed mathematics content courses for elementary teacher candidates (TCs). In doing so, our aim was to preserve our pedagogical commitments of collaborative learning and equitable participation. In this paper, we describe a measurement activity that we redesigned in the rapid transition to online teaching. This activity exemplifies how the constraints of remote teaching opened new opportunities for maintaining our pedagogical commitments in different and richer ways. We also highlight two takeaways from this work: (1) creating space for students to explore introductory activities at home can lead to richer class discussions and more equitable participation, and (2) allowing for students to share their work in an online environment can lead to more creative approaches and presentations, as well as opportunities for students to share in-progress thinking before whole class discussions.