"Discovering a glycoprotein: The case of the H,K-ATPase”. An Online Game for Improvement of Reading Skills in a Course of Biological Chemistry

During the COVID-19 pandemic we developed an activity that encourages engagement with scientific reading and helps students to improve their reading skills as a complement to the glycobiology section of an undergraduate course of biological chemistry. Using Genially, an online platform for gamification and self-taught learning, we designed the activity named "Discovering a glycoprotein: The case of the H,K-ATPase” based on the characterization of the β-subunit of the gastric H,K-ATPase, a glycoprotein discovered in the 1960s. While testing users' knowledge in glycobiology, the game invites them to follow the research steps throughout four missions, where the experimental details and their results are presented. After solving the missions, participants were invited to answer a questionnaire through Google forms. Our results showed that the game is useful for students as it introduces an innovative way of analyzing a scientific article different from the conventional activities that students typically face without teacher assistance and in many cases do not complete. We expect that our pilot-study will be an additional boost for the implementation of gamification in the science classroom, and in turn, serve as an example of the importance of gamification in future teacher training as an assisting tool to traditional education methods. © 2022 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

Multi-Features Disease Analysis Based Smart Diagnosis for COVID-19

Coronavirus 2019 (COVID -19) is the current global buzzword, putting the world at risk. The pandemic's exponential expansion of infected COVID-19 patients has challenged the medical field's resources, which are already few. Even established nations would not be in a perfect position to manage this epidemic correctly, leaving emerging countries and countries that have not yet begun to grow to address the problem. These problems can be solved by using machine learning models in a realistic way, such as by using computer-aided images during medical examinations. These models help predict the effects of the disease outbreak and help detect the effects in the coming days. In this paper, Multi-Features Decease Analysis (MFDA) is used with different ensemble classifiers to diagnose the disease's impact with the help of Computed Tomography (CT) scan images. There are various features associated with chest CT images, which help know the possibility of an individual being affected and how COVID-19 will affect the persons suffering from pneumonia. The current study attempts to increase the precision of the diagnosis model by evaluating various feature sets and choosing the best combination for better results. The model's performance is assessed using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve, the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and the Confusion Matrix. It is observed from the resultant outcome that the performance of the proposed model has exhibited better efficient. © 2023 CRL Publishing. All rights reserved.

A Hybrid Deep Fused Learning Approach to Segregate Infectious Diseases

Humankind is facing another deadliest pandemic of all times in history, caused by COVID-19. Apart from this challenging pandemic, World Health Organization (WHO) considers tuberculosis (TB) as a preeminent infectious disease due to its high infection rate. Generally, both TB and COVID-19 severely affect the lungs, thus hardening the job of medical practitioners who can often misidentify these diseases in the current situation. Therefore, the time of need calls for an immediate and meticulous automatic diagnostic tool that can accurately discriminate both diseases. As one of the preliminary smart health systems that examine three clinical states (COVID-19, TB, and normal cases), this study proposes an amalgam of image filtering, data-augmentation technique, transfer learning-based approach, and advanced deep-learning classifiers to effectively segregate these diseases. It first employed a generative adversarial network (GAN) and Crimmins speckle removal filter on X-ray images to overcome the issue of limited data and noise. Each pre-processed image is then converted into red, green, and blue (RGB) and Commission Internationale de l'Elcairage (CIE) color spaces from which deep fused features are formed by extracting relevant features using DenseNet121 and ResNet50. Each feature extractor extracts 1000 most useful features which are then fused and finally fed to two variants of recurrent neural network (RNN) classifiers for precise discrimination of three-clinical states. Comparative analysis showed that the proposed Bi-directional long-short-term-memory (Bi-LSTM) model dominated the long-short-term-memory (LSTM) network by attaining an overall accuracy of 98.22% for the three-class classification task, whereas LSTM hardly achieved 94.22% accuracy on the test dataset. © 2023 Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.

Coherent Phonons in Antimony: An Undergraduate Physical Chemistry Solid-State Ultrafast Laser Spectroscopy Experiment

Ultrafast laser pump-probe spectroscopy is an important and growing field of physical chemistry that allows the measurement of chemical dynamics on their natural time scales, but undergraduate laboratory courses lack examples of such spectroscopy and the interpretation of the dynamics that occur. Here we develop and implement an ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy experiment for the undergraduate physical chemistry laboratory course at the University of California Berkeley. The goal of the experiment is to expose students to concepts in solid-state chemistry and ultrafast spectroscopy via classic coherent phonon dynamics principles developed by researchers over multiple decades. The experiment utilizes a modern high-repetition-rate 800 nm femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser, split pulses with a variable time delay, and sensitive detection of transient reflectivity signals using the lock-in technique. The experiment involves minimal intervention from students and is therefore easy and safe to implement in the laboratory. Students first perform an intensity autocorrelation measurement on the femtosecond laser pulses to obtain their temporal duration. Then, students measure the pump-probe reflectivity of a single-crystal antimony sample to determine the period of coherent phonon oscillations initiated by an ultrafast pulse excitation, which is analyzed by fitting to a sine wave. Students who completed the experiment in-person obtained good experimental results, and students who took the course remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic were provided with the data they would have obtained during the experiment to analyze. Evaluation of student written and oral reports reveals that the learning goals were met, and that students gained an appreciation for the field of ultrafast laser-induced chemistry. © 2022 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

Perceptions on the use of distance learning by families of children with visual impairment and deafblindness

The purpose of our qualitative study was to explore what distance-based teaching and learning practices have been supportive to students with visual impairments and their families. Using purposive sampling, interviews, and qualitative analysis, we found that supportive approaches for distance learning (DL) included parental involvement and participation, as well as tailored instructional approaches and accommodations for the student. In some instances, DL was identified as being more supportive for immune-compromised children. Negative facets of the practice included diminished richness in socializing, and the lack of certain strengths of in-person education. Families' experiences ranged from finding DL helpful, to considering the practice as unfit for their child's education, as well as a poor fit for family life. Flags for future research include family preparation for future DL needs, including culturally-diverse families in research opportunities, and evaluating what DL supports lead to improved outcomes for children and families. © The Author(s) 2023.

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.

COVID-19 and the Incoming Chemistry Student: The Effect of the Pandemic on Student Self-Efficacy and Identity

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way that students and educators are able to interact in higher education settings, and timely investigations into its impact on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students are of critical importance. In a continued effort to provide student data to chemistry educators, we offer a comparison of 3 years of incoming undergraduate cohorts. Herein we compare data from incoming general chemistry students for Fall 2019 through Fall 2021 to offer a picture of student intention to pursue a career in STEM over time during the pandemic. The results demonstrate that our most recent cohort (Fall 2021) has an increased intention to pursue a STEM degree coupled with a weak decrease in scientific self-efficacy. We discuss potential causes of these observations and offer strategies for fostering a welcoming environment in the chemistry laboratory. © 2022 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

Virtualization of Laboratory Practices Using Visual Basic Excel

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related restrictions forced the reorganization of learning methodology and gave a central role to remote learning. Laboratory experiments are the most affected activity, and several alternatives were described. This work proposes to create calculation tools by simply programming in Visual Basic of Excel to emulate the data acquisition of specific laboratory experiments. The approach appears useful in experiments with a simple setup followed by data analysis. The experiment of gas volumetric properties allows fixing pressure and temperature conditions and measuring the occupied volume. The developed program emulates such operations and reports a computed volume. Further data reduction is the same in both procedures. Such a virtual experience was successfully used with groups of over 100 students. The results obtained were satisfactory compared with those obtained in the laboratory. Detailed analysis of the grades shows that acquired skills are comparable in both methodologies. Consequently, the virtual approach is a flexible option for remote laboratory teaching to complement traditional experimentation. Published 2022 by American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

Teaching Single Crystal X-ray Crystallography in the Undergraduate Classroom with Sugar and Epsom Salt

We developed a single crystal X-ray crystallography experiment based on the crystal structure of sucrose (table sugar), and a more challenging experiment using Epsom salt. Both crystals are readily available in X-ray quality crystalline form. In these experiments, students mounted a crystal on a MiTeGen loop and analyzed it using a Rigaku XtaLAB Mini diffractometer (built 2011). Students generated models of both compounds using CrysAlisPro, Olex2, SHELXT, and SHELXL. All aspects of this experiment use free software programs which have user-friendly interfaces. A step-by-step laboratory protocol for determining the structure of both compounds is included in the Supporting Information. These experiments were used in the Fall of 2019 at the Junior and the Senior level. In the Summer of 2020, a take-home version of the lab was created in response to the Novel 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and implemented in the General Chemistry laboratory curriculum;this experiment was used for the duration of the 2020-2021 academic year. These experiments are suitable for all undergraduate experience levels. © 2022 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.

Factors affecting nursing and health technician students' satisfaction with distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco: a survey-based observational study.

PURPOSE: Distance learning describes any learning based on the use of new multimedia technologies and the internet to allow students to acquire new knowledge and skills at a distance. This study aimed to deter-mine satisfaction levels with distance learning and associated factors among nursing and health technician students during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in Morocco. METHODS: An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted between April and June 2022 among nursing and health technician students using a self-administered instrument. The student satisfaction ques-tionnaire consists of 24 questions categorized into 6 subscales: instructor, technology, course setup, interac-tion, outcomes, and overall satisfaction. It was based on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify factors associated with student satisfaction during distance learning. RESULTS: A total of 330 students participated in this study, and 176 students (53.3%) were satisfied with the distance learning activities. A mean score higher than 2.8 out of 5 was obtained for all subscales. Multiple regression analysis showed that students' year of study (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=2.34; 95% CI, 1.28-4.27) and internet quality (aOR=0.47; 95% CI, 0.29-0.77) were the significant factors associated with students' satisfaction during distance learning. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the satisfaction level of students and factors that influenced it during distance learning. A thorough understanding of student satisfaction with digital environments will contrib-ute to the successfully implementation of distance learning devices in nursing.

How Virtual Animal Anatomy facilitated a successful transition to online instruction and supported student learning during the coronavirus pandemic.

Anatomy faculty with cadaver-based laboratory courses were presented with a significant challenge in March 2020 to create equivalent learning experiences without cadaveric access. The undergraduate domestic animal anatomy course at the Colorado State University was halfway into a 16-week semester when COVID-19 lockdown orders and the transition to remote instruction began. The new course curriculum was critically evaluated using student surveys and course outcome data. Most students (92.5%) agreed that the transition to online learning was a success; however, students who valued face-to-face lectures prior to March were less likely to perceive the transition as a success. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of survey results suggest that the resources perceived as most helpful for the transition to online learning were not the same as those that helped facilitate animal anatomy learning. Most students (92.5%) agreed that the Virtual Animal Anatomy (VAA) helped them learn anatomy, and 82.2% indicated that the VAA was a valuable resource following the transition to online learning. Additional resources associated with transition success included course instructors, weekly quizzes, written descriptions of anatomical structures and open laboratory sessions. In contrast, those resources associated with facilitating learning included guided quizzes and asynchronous lecture recordings. These findings suggest that the VAA can support online anatomy learning when used in conjunction with other best practices for online teaching.

Shared Reading and Science Vocabulary for Kindergarten Students.

Kindergarten students commonly receive a limited amount of exposure to scientific concepts and informational texts. The present study used a multiple probe design across participants to determine the effects of shared reading instruction on three kindergarten students' science-related vocabulary acquisition in a virtual classroom during the Covid-19 pandemic. The interventionist delivered explicit vocabulary instruction by reading aloud a science picture book and intentionally pausing to define, explain, and discuss vocabulary words that were unfamiliar to young students. Researcher-developed vocabulary probes were administered every fifth instructional session and measured specific words taught during instruction. Results of virtual shared reading instruction indicate positive effects (Tau-U = 0.222-0.933) on kindergarten students' science vocabulary learning. Students, their instructor, and caregivers all perceived the shared reading instruction as beneficial for science vocabulary development. These findings suggest explicit science vocabulary instruction during shared reading is beneficial to students and feasible for teachers to implement in a virtual classroom. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10643-021-01288-w.

Did the COVID-19 pandemic lead to an increase in academic misconduct in higher education?

The shift to online instruction in higher education related to the COVID-19 pandemic has raised worldwide concerns about an increase in academic misconduct (cheating and plagiarism). However, data to document any increase is sparse. For this study, we collected survey data from 484 students in 11 universities in the USA, and 410 students in five universities in Romania. The data support the conclusions that (1) cheating on exams increased with the shift to online instruction, but plagiarism and cheating on assignments may not have increased, (2) significant differences between the two countries suggest that intervention planning should avoid assuming that results from one context may generalize to another, and (3) influencing student beliefs about rates of AM among their peers may be a fruitful new route for reducing academic misconduct.

Online versus face‐to‐face cheating: The prevalence of cheating behaviours during the pandemic compared to the pre‐pandemic among Turkish University students

BackgroundDuring the COVID‐19 period, academics and higher education institutions have shown deep concern about academic integrity related to measurement and evaluation issues that have arisen in online education.ObjectivesTo address this concern, this paper examined the prevalence of cheating behaviour among university students before and during the pandemic by comparing self‐reported cheating behaviours of students and academics' perceived levels of cheating behaviours of their students.MethodsA correlational design was employed aligned with study objectives.Results and ConclusionsThe results indicate that although both groups reported a significant increase in cheating incidents in online education, instructors' perceived frequency of student cheating is remarkably greater than students' self‐report cheating incidents. Contrary to the perceptions of instructors and stakeholders in education, students did not report a very drastic cheating increase in online education during the pandemic. The strongest predictive power for online cheating behaviours was the cheating behaviours in face‐to‐face education. Whereas the sensitivity of institutions and course instructors toward cheating behaviour was negatively associated with cheating behaviours in face‐to‐face education, this situational factor did not show a significant effect in distance education. Regarding individual factors, we found a significant relationship between cheating behaviours and gender, discipline, whereas no significant relationship was found in terms of student GPA. Consequently, in order to minimize the threats to the validity of scores associated with cheating, faculty should be supported through faculty development programs and resources so that they can develop authentic assessment strategies for measuring higher‐order thinking skills.Alternate :Lay DescriptionWhat is already known about this topicThe COVID‐19 period created an abrupt shift in learning conditions and measurement processes.Educational administrators and teachers have also shown deep concern about academic integrity related to measurement and evaluation issues that have arisen in distance education during the pandemic period.Previous studies investigating the factors affecting students' academic dishonesty in traditional cheating behaviours have primarily focused on individual and situational factors.What this paper addsThe online education process caused an increase in cheating behaviour scores.There is a substantial range between students and instructors' responses about online cheating during the pandemic.Cheating behaviour in face‐to‐face education significantly explains cheating behaviour in online education. Cheaters in face‐to‐face education are also cheaters in online education.The sensitivity shown by university and course instructors toward cheating yielded a mixed result in online and face‐to‐face education.In online and face‐to‐face education settings, cheating behaviour scores of female students are lower than male students.Students with lower GPA scores generally have higher cheating behaviours.Implications for practice and/or policyIndividual and contextual factors are major determinants of cheating behaviours.In order to minimize the threats on validity of scores associated with cheating, faculty should be supported through faculty development programs and resources so that they can develop authentic assessment strategies for measuring higher‐order thinking skills.This study fills an important gap in the available literature on cheating before and during COVID‐19.The study has a potential to guide higher education institutions for planning and initiating strategies to address cheating in short and long term.

AutoMID: A Novel Framework For Automated Computer Aided Diagnosis Of Medical Images

Machine Learning, a subtype of AI, enables computers to mimic human behavior without explicit programming. Machine learning models aren't used very often in diagnostic imaging because there isn't enough knowledge and resources to do so. Hence, this study aims to apply automated machine learning to the diagnosis of medical images to make machine learning more accessible to non-experts. In this study, a dataset containing 2313 images each of covid-19, pneumonia and normal chest x-rays were selected and divided into testing, training, and validation datasets. The AutoGluon library was used to train and produce a model that would classify an input image and infer the probable diagnosis from the diseases it was trained upon. This study can prove that applying hyperparameter optimization and neural architecture search is able to produce high accuracy models for medical image diagnosis. © 2022 Association for Computing Machinery.

An Approach for COVID-19 Identification from Chest X-ray Images Using High-Resolution Networks

In this paper, we present an approach for COVID-19 identification from chest X-ray images by using high-resolution neural networks. These networks allow to connect high-to-low convolution streams in parallel. They can maintain high-resolution representations and generate different resolutions throughout the whole process. The high-resolution based models have shown the superior performance in several applications. The experiments were evaluated on a collection of three data sources containing 24,786 lung X-ray images, which were categorized into three classes including covid pneumonia, non-pneumonia, and viral pneumonia. The proposed approach can attain the overall accuracy of 98.2% and 97.56% for the training and testing set, respectively. The accuracy for each class is 99.37%, 94.83%, and 97.27%, respectively, for non-pneumonia, covid-pneumonia, and viral-pneumonia. © 2022 IEEE.

What Happened to Academic Achievement in Chemical Engineering?: A Study in the Days of COVID-19

COVID-19 forced higher education institutions to change the learning environment from face-to-face to computer-assisted to continue and ensure educational quality. Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of environmental change on the academic performance of chemical engineering students. Students of General Chemistry I and Engineering of Transport Phenomena participated and were recognized as apprentices and connoisseurs, respectively. Materials and methods: Two Likert-type instruments were designed and validated to evaluate the perception of academic and social variables at two moments, the beginning of isolation and the end of the semester;in addition, the grades of the first and sixth semester students who participated in the study, called apprentices and connoisseurs, respectively, were compared with the grades of students who took the subjects in other periods. Results and discussion: Experiencing a new learning context that strongly affected the social component decreased apprentices' performance, while connoisseurs improved their performance through school adaptation, a product of their experience and mental maturity. Communication and formative well-being were recognized as the variables that make face-to-face attendance more favorable for the acquisition of knowledge and the development of skills. The remote modality conditions the methodology affecting learning, and finally, the evaluation process does not change when the environment is modified, since, being an institutional requirement, it does not depend on the learning space. Conclusions: The learning environment affects the performance of students, negatively for learners and positively for connoisseurs, who by having university experience manifest a capacity for adaptation. On the other hand, face-to-face attendance favors well-being by improving assertive communication and the development of transversal competencies. © 2022, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. All rights reserved.

Virtual Notebooks: Collaboration & Connection During Covid-19 and Beyond

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many instructors to find new ways to achieve learning outcomes and connect to students within a hybrid or online teaching landscape. However, some of the creative ways instructors connected with students can now be used both in online classes and as we adapt back into full-time in-person instruction. Virtual notebooks were a tool used by this writing team to help structure online and in-person courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level, as well as facilitate collaboration and reflection. Grounded in a connectivist pedagogy, virtual notebooks are interactive, "live” resources that allow instructors and students to collaborate in real time, link to outside resources easily, and store information in a central location. Three vignettes (two undergraduate courses, one graduate course) provide specific applications and recommendations for virtual notebook use in recreation and leisure courses. A companion website is also provided to assist with logistical concerns, linked here: https://bit.ly/VirtualNotebooks. © 2023 National Recreation and Park Association.

A Method for Flexible Definition and Automatic Implementation of Laboratory Environment in Online Training Platforms

Cloud infrastructure enables individuals, organizations, and enterprises to offer scalable and elastic resources to support business operations remotely. The demand for digital transformation encourages communities and technical professionals to adopt cloud computing and automation platforms for facilitating their resource capacity, including operating systems, networks, and applications. Of cloud-based applications for social good, virtual education platforms play an important role to re-duce the cost and effort for trainees and trainers during practical courses, especially in the context of pandemics such as Covid-19. Nonetheless, the task of setting up practical environments with virtual machines, network elements, and software programs is the burden of the system that hosts many training courses with numerous trainees or resources. Hence, this research provides the mechanism for defining and automatically implementing the hands-on laboratory environments for information technology (IT) training. Specifically, we design and implement a concurrent scheme and local repository for deploying multiple environments with high performance in large virtual classrooms. The total time to finish environmental settings for learners is kept stable to meet the satisfaction of users in case of the remarkable growth in the number of environments and trainees. © 2022 IEEE.

Providing Support for Middle School English Learners During Remote Learning

The authors offer a creative solution to help engage and meet the needs unique to English learners during remote learning. Voice recorders are introduced as a low-tech, versatile, and valuable tool that can be used in a variety of ways both in and out of the classroom.