Conceptualising Emotional Engagement in an Online Asynchronous Forum

Will a warmer world be a sicker world? What is it about the New England landscape that supports the proliferation of Lyme disease? How are local wildlife trade and global species invasions contributors to emerging diseases such as the 2003 outbreak of monkey pox virus in the midwestern United States? Undergraduate students explore these and related questions in BIOL 1455 Planetary Health: global environmental change and emerging infectious disease—a new online asynchronous course at Brown University. Planetary health is gaining traction in the curricula of institutions of higher learning and online asynchronous courses offer the promise of scaling up to make grand challenges education accessible to many. In our new course, we assessed student learning outcomes (LOs) and sentiment towards the health of humans and the planet using a mixed-methods approach. Students demonstrated competency in each of the LOs after course completion as measured in a pre–post assessment scored with a standardized rubric. Student sentiment was analyzed with an immersion–crystallization qualitative analysis to elucidate themes in responses to the assessments. Many themes on the pre-assessment focused on barriers and problems associated with the health of humans and the planet, while themes on the post-assessment centered on more solutions-based thinking. Collectively, these findings indicate that this online asynchronous course successfully educated students about the myriad challenges facing human and planetary health, broadened knowledge of environmental changes (beyond climate change) that impact health, formalized understanding of now common terms such as “emerging infectious diseases”, and bolstered hope by offering solutions and peer community (even when virtual). Future efforts to integrate planetary health into higher education should focus on broadly accessible and scalable courses, full programs of study (i.e., majors/scholarly concentrations), and extension into institutional programs focused on ensuring equity and wellness for all.

PurposeThis research aims to test the relationships between organisational mindfulness, social learning and opportunistic behaviour of small business leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachSemi-structured interviews were conducted with six small business leaders from various sectors to explore and better grasp the unprecedented phenomenon. An online survey on small business owners and managers in Indonesia was then employed as the main study, resulting in 291 valid responses for further analysis. The data were analysed using regression on SmartPLS 3.0 software.FindingsThis research finds that organisational mindfulness and social learning have positive and significant associations with the ability of small business leaders to discover and exploit opportunities. The path analysis suggests that organisational mindfulness plays a pivotal role as it also partially mediates the relationship between social learning and opportunistic behaviour.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to test the relationships between organisational mindfulness, social learning and opportunistic behaviour, particularly in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. This work also contributes by emphasising the critical linkages between internal and external capabilities triggered by small business leaders to survive the pandemic.

IntroductionThe social and emotional health of youth is important, especially after students experience the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to understand the influence that the Believe In You Student Empowerment Program had on students social emotional learning (SEL) behaviors over a 10 week period during the COVID-19 pandemic.Materials and methodsA part of this quantitative study, one school in each the intervention and the control group (delayed intervention; 2 schools total) participated in the study. Students enrolled in physical education within each school participated (n = 166; Intervention = 88). Students in each group took a survey at week 1 (baseline measure), week 5, and week 10. Students who were in the intervention group started the program after week 1, while the delayed intervention group began the program in week 5.ResultsA series of ANCOVA's examined the difference of social emotional learning knowledge and social emotional learning scales between the treatment and control groups. Self-awareness (F = 13.91, p < .01), self-management (F = 6.14, p < .01) & relationship skills (F = 5.50, p < .05) saw significant differences over time compared to the control group. The second series of analyses looked only at the intervention group and analyzed to determine significant differences in mean scores of SEL variables between weeks one and ten. Emotional regulation saw significant differences (t = 2.5, p < .01). The final set of analyses conducted were with the delayed intervention group and examined the difference in mean SEL scores over the three time periods. Again, emotional regulation saw significance with an interaction of time and gender (F = 4.162, p < .01).Discussion and ConclusionIn a short period of time, Believe in You Student Empowerment Program has shown the potential to have a positive influence on students social emotional learning behaviors, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. More research should be conducted over a longer period of time, in-person, and with an experimental design to better understand the effects of the Varsity Brands Believe in You Student Empowerment Program and its implications with student social emotional learning behaviors.

The origin of face or language influences infants' perceptual processing and social learning behavior. However, it remains unclear how infants' social learning behavior is affected when both information are provided simultaneously. Hence, the current study investigated whether and how infants' social learning in terms of gaze following is influenced by face race and language origin of an interaction partner in an uncertain situation. Our sample consisted of 91 Caucasian infants from German speaking families. They were divided into 2 age groups: Younger infants were 5- to 8-month-old (n=46) and the older infants 11- to 20-month-old (n=45). We used a modified online version of the gaze following paradigm by Xiao and colleagues by varying face race (Caucasian, and Asian faces) and language (German and French) of a female actor. We recorded infants looking behavior via webcam and coded it offline. Our results revealed that older but not younger infants were biased to follow the gaze of own-race adults speaking their native language. Our findings show that older infants are clearly influenced by adults' ethnicity and language in social learning situations of uncertainty.

Objective: To explore the experiences of medical teachers regarding the development and implementation of an online asynchronous course in Forensic Medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study Design: Qualitative exploratory study Place and Duration of Study: Islamic International Medical College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, from Apr to Aug 2021. Methodology: Nine faculty participants were selected for semi-structured interviews using convenience sampling. Data was collected through a validated questionnaire with five open-ended questions. The data was transcribed, and manually analyzed using an inductive approach. Open codes were combined to form categories, while themes were generated after constant comparison of codes. Results: Four major themes emerged during the analysis: 1) course development, 2) course implementation, 3) course evaluation, and 4) future endeavors. Conclusion: The themes that emerged highlight the adaptability and effectiveness of asynchronous learning, the importance of collaborative content selection, the challenges and opportunities in course implementation and evaluation, and the future aspirations for improving this mode of instruction.

The pandemic resulted in many courses being shifted to online delivery, but some courses are designed as online courses from their conception. Courses intentionally designed for online delivery should be well-received by students, but it is not clear which aspects of courses students find particularly appealing and unappealing. We examined students’ perceptions of one such online asynchronous course in psychology in order to better understand students’ preferences in terms of specific course elements. Students were asked to identify what they particularly liked and disliked about the course in two open-ended questions. Responses were then coded to quantify the frequency of each aspect of the course. An inductive and latent approach to coding was used, with codes being used to develop themes based on the underlying meaning of the text. Overall, students identified few negative aspects about the course. They particularly enjoyed the specific psychology content, format, and structure of the course, that it related to their real lives, and the flexibility provided by the asynchronous nature. The hope is that this information can be used to improve this particular course as well as inform instructor decision-making related to the design of online asynchronous courses in general.

Online learning has grown productive and vital for delivering asynchronous instruction to undergraduate medical students. We explored the factors that affect the learning of undergraduate medical students in an online asynchronous Forensic Medicine course through focus group discussions. These factors were identified in three components of theoretical framework: learner, design, and environment. The promoting factors in the learner component were regulation of learning, internal motivation, metacognition, interaction with peers, and social interaction. Hampering factors were poor self-regulation, losing motivation, and less use of discussion forums. In the environment component students’ engagement, external motivation, and lack of physical interaction hampered the learning. In design: course content, links, extra material, pre-recorded lectures, assessment, time limitation, and flexibility promoted the learning, while lack of training in asynchronous mode, losing motivation, loss of attention, and less interaction hampered learning. These identified factors will assist online educators and instructors in designing better online asynchronous courses.

This study examines how primary-level preservice teachers (PSTs) in an online asynchronous course (co-)constructed and (re)negotiated their professional identities through the use of metaphors in online asynchronous courses in the U.S. By using metaphors and narrating their lived experiences in relation to their chosen metaphors, participants expressed their desired and feared identities. Their metaphorical expression of identities reflects the complex interplay between participants’ construction of their possible selves within the temporal, social, and spatial context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual and collaborative metaphor-based reflections provided a reflective space for PSTs to explore professional becoming and future possibilities at the interface between their sense of agency and their situated temporal, spatial, and social context, even within asynchronous online teacher education courses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent global events have led to an increase in the delivery of higher education in an asynchronous online format. These changes have impacted students’ ability to schedule their lives around their education. This study investigates trends in student access to online asynchronous courses. This study utilized learning analytics data from the learning management system for thirty-eight online asynchronous communication courses taught by twelve different faculty members at a large research university in the southwestern United States. A total of 1,384 students were involved in the study. Profile Analyses indicate clear non-linear trends for time of day, day of the week, and week of the semester in student course access. Results indicate those trends vary significantly from a no-effect condition by level of course and gender of student across multiple courses.

The present study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on HRD in small businesses by providing a detailed investigation of the role that owner-managers play in enabling social learning and performance in small firms. The investigation focusses particularly on the specific relationships of the social-interdependence orientation and social competence of owner-managers with their social learning behaviour, as well as with the performance of their small-businesses within the pig-production sector in the Republic of Korea. A survey was conducted amongst nearly 200 Korean owner-managers of pig farms. The results indicate that social interdependence orientations and social competencies have a significant relationship with social learning behaviour. Self-promotion and a cooperative orientation are especially important, with self-promotion taking precedence for social learning behaviour of a more ‘internal’ nature, and a cooperative attitude being more important social learning behaviour of a more ‘external’ nature. Social competence and social interdependence did not have a significant relationship with performance, but social learning behaviour did. The results further highlight the importance of individual social characteristics to social learning behaviour occurring outside highly structured educational settings, in addition to demonstrating that the competence and attitudes required are determined by the type of interaction partner.

Moschus chrysogaster (hereafter – musk deer) is an endemic to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and surrounding areas in China. Due to historical overutilisation and habitat degradation and loss, the musk deer is endangered and faces serious threats to its survival. Besides in situ conservation, musk deer farming is an important and effective means for ex situ conservation and sustainable supply of musk resources. Wild musk deer are solitary and highly territorial, but in captivity they are subjected to intensive farming practices that confine them to a limited space, leading to the development of a hierarchy structure. This study was carried out from January 2021 to December 2023 at the Musk Deer Farm in Zhuanglang County, Gansu Province, China. Focal sampling and all-occurrence recording were used to measure conflict behaviour of captive musk deer. Social network analysis was used to study the relationships between social conflict and social learning within the captive community. Our finding revealed a significant positive correlation between the hierarchy rank of the conflict initiator and the receiver, and individuals tended to initiate conflict against individuals close to their ranks, which reflected the individual identification of the hierarchy within the community. The social learning behaviour of musk deer in various ranks was significantly different. The social learning behaviour of middle rank (40.7%) was significantly higher than that of high rank (14.5%) and low rank (14.0%). Compared with the social learning behaviour of musk deer before conflict (37.9%), the social learning behaviour of musk deer after conflict (62.1%) was significantly increased, but there was no significant difference in non-social learning behaviour before conflict (46.7%) and after conflict (53.3%). This research reveals the majority of conflicts unfolding among the higher ranks of the captive population. To improve musk deer farming, it is imperative to assess the conflict potential and sociality of individuals within the broader hierarchy. In addition, we found a significant surge in socially learning behaviours among musk deer post-conflict, indicative of the essential spread of information on individual rank and fighting capabilities within the captive population. Recognising the pronounced social learning in captive individuals with middle ranks, managers should focus on these key members. The alleviating conflict level by rationally translocating individuals while maintaining a hierarchical structure within the group is critical to the successful musk deer conservation and farming.

This chapter describes a case study of the gamification of an educational technology graduate course at the University of Hawaii. The chapter will provide some background literature about chat apps, chat apps in education, and gamification. Next, the chapter will discuss how gamification design elements, framed by the curricula, were implemented in the Discord chat app server using roles, bots, and participation-based experience points. Finally, the chapter will discuss the benefits, challenges, and lessons from incorporating gamification in the Discord server for a graduate online asynchronous course. Recommendations will be provided for instructors who are considering gamifying their college courses.

The handbook on poverty and inequality provides tools to measure, describe, monitor, evaluate, and analyze poverty. It provides background materials for designing poverty reduction strategies. This book is intended for researchers and policy analysts involved in poverty research and policy making. The handbook began as a series of notes to support training courses on poverty analysis and gradually grew into a sixteen, chapter book. Now the Handbook consists of explanatory text with numerous examples, interspersed with multiple-choice questions (to ensure active learning) and combined with extensive practical exercises using stata statistical software. The handbook has been thoroughly tested. The World Bank Institute has used most of the chapters in training workshops in countries throughout the world, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malawi, Pakistan, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Thailand, as well as in distance courses with substantial numbers of participants from numerous countries in Asia (in 2002) and Africa (in 2003), and online asynchronous courses with more than 200 participants worldwide (in 2007 and 2008). The feedback from these courses has been very useful in helping us create a handbook that balances rigor with accessibility and practicality. The handbook has also been used in university courses related to poverty.

The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between emotional labor behaviors and work engagement of high school teachers. The study is in the relational screening model. 251 teachers determined by the appropriate sampling method participated in this study. In the study, &quot;Emotional Labor Scale&quot; and &quot;Business Engagement Scale&quot; were used as data collection tools. According to the findings of the research, it was observed that high school teachers often show deep role-playing behaviors and natural emotions, which are among the emotional labor behaviors, while they rarely show superficial role-playing behaviors. It has been observed that teachers show a high level of emotional engagement behaviors, mostly physical and cognitive engagement behaviors for work engagement. While there was a negative meaningful relationship between the superficial role-playing dimension and the emotional engagement dimension, there was a positive meaningful relationship between the natural emotions dimension and the emotional engagement, physical engagement and cognitive engagement dimensions. This relationship is mostly among the dimensions of emotional engagement and natural emotions. Emotional labor behaviors were seen to be a significant predictor of emotional and cognitive engagement behaviors other than physical engagement behaviors.

Research is well established to indicate that the presence of competencies reflecting social and emotional learning is beneficial to students (and teachers) as they seek success in their academic development as well as life within the community (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL], 2008; Durlak, Domitrovich, Weissberg, and Gullotta, 2015). The benefits of implementing programs schoolwide are also well documented (Brackett a Rivers, 2011; Zins et al., 2004). There are also well-researched indications that the implementation of a positive behaviour program such as Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support provides students with a framework of behavioural expectations and support that helps to minimise negative behavioural incidences, which are distractions from learning (Sugai et al., 2010). It follows that the simultaneous implementation of both a positive behaviour program and a social and emotional learning program would maximise the opportunities for students to develop those skills required to be successful in academic learning and daily life. This thesis, grounded in the literature of social and emotional learning and positive behaviour support presents successful strategies used to teach social and emotional learning competencies in two environments, School A and School B. A key and common feature of the chosen schools is that they both implemented Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support. School A also implemented the schoolwide social and emotional learning program You Can Do It! Education. School B mainly taught these skills to students on a perceived needs basis, as identified by their teachers. To identify the successful strategies, three case studies were conducted involving six teachers, three from each of Schools A and B. The teachers who participated in the study were nominated by either the Principal or the Deputy Principal of the relevant school and were representative of the upper, middle and lower primary. Case Study One included two Year 6 (upper primary) teachers, one from each school. Similarly, Case Study Two included two Year 4 (middle primary) teachers and Case Study Three included two Year 2 (lower primary) teachers. The teaching participants in this study, as well as the administration members from both schools, were interviewed to identify their understandings and implementation of the internationally accepted social and emotional learning competencies as documented by CASEL. Teaching participants were also observed in their classrooms. Studentsr development of social and emotional learning skills, as perceived by their teachers, were recorded through completion of a survey at both the commencement and conclusion of the study. Behavioural documentation relating to office discipline referrals and student disciplinary absences were reviewed by the researcher for each of the participating teachersr classrooms. As well, a focus group of four students from each of the classes involved in this study were interviewed. However, because of difficulties initiating discussion from the younger students, only the data collected from Year 6 students were included in the study. Administration and teacher interviews, classroom observations, surveys completed by teachers to reflect their perceptions of their studentsr development of social and emotional learning competencies and behavioural documentation were reviewed to code data. Interviews were coded to identify perceived understandings and importance of social and emotional learning competencies, as well as intervieweesr perceptions of not only how they helped students develop each of the competencies, but also school/classroom changes. Transcripts of observations of teachers were coded to identify social and emotional learning language used in their classrooms and to measure classroom climate through the presence of respect in the classrooms, studentsr motivation and morale, and tone of the teacher. Other behaviours such as non-verbal communications were also identified. Teachersr perceptions of the development of their studentsr social and emotional learning competencies combined with records relating to behavioural infractions in their classrooms completed the coded data. From this the researcher ascertained emerging themes and successful strategies relating to the development of social and emotional learning competencies, as demonstrated by the teachers. To assist with this analysis, Year 6 focus group interviews were analysed to identify the studentsr understanding and use of language reflecting feelings, their ability to identify emotions appropriately and to provide possible solutions to situations with which they could be familiar at school to demonstrate development or otherwise of the relevant competencies. The overall finding from the present study was that in classrooms implementing the behaviour framework, Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support, students develop more social and emotional learning competencies when there is also implementation of a schoolwide social and emotional learning program such as You Can Do It! Education. This strategy, the formal schoolwide teaching of social and emotional learning skills, over and above the implementation of Schoolwide Positive Behaviour Support: 1. facilitated more development of studentsr social and emotional learning competencies; 2. provided more opportunities for student learning because there were few student disruptions in classrooms where students demonstrated well developed social and emotional learning skills; 3. provided teachers and students with a common language; and 4. facilitated a school/classroom environment more conducive to learning. This thesis makes an important contribution to the research on student development of social and emotional learning competencies. The implementation of a schoolwide social and emotional learning program which addresses all the identified competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making gives students considerable opportunity to develop the required skills. However, additive benefits are evident when a schoolwide social and emotional learning program is implemented within a schoolwide behaviour framework. This study provides preliminary research which could be used to inform a more extensive study involving a wider range of classrooms and schools, in the future. e