Closure Of Universities Research Articles

Simulated Video Consultations as a Learning Tool in Undergraduate Nursing: Students' Perceptions.

Simulated video consultations, a teaching tool based on high-fidelity simulations, were implemented in response to the necessary adaptation of high-fidelity clinical simulation sessions to the online or virtual modality during the university closure due to the COVID-19 confinement. The purpose of our study was to explore the undergraduate nursing students’ satisfaction and perceptions about simulated video consultations using the high-fidelity simulation methodology. A mixed-method was utilized with 93 undergraduate nursing students using a validated satisfaction questionnaire (quantitative data), which included an observations section (qualitative data). Of the total sample, 97.8% of the students expressed a high overall satisfaction with simulated video consultations, highlighting their practical utility and positive learning outcomes. From the students’ comments, two main themes and their related categories emerged: advantages (satisfaction and enjoyment, learning, and calmness during simulated scenarios), and disadvantages (technical issues and technical skills development). Simulated video consultations may be considered as one more high-fidelity simulation teaching option. Nursing students should be trained in this modality of healthcare to face the challenge brought on by its increased use in healthcare services, beyond the specific adaptation of clinical simulation sessions due to the closure of universities during this pandemic.

Simulated Nursing Video Consultations: An Innovative Proposal During Covid-19 Confinement

BackgroundIn response to the closure of universities and the canceling of in-person classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this study was designed to focus on a solution for adapting simulation-based education to this situation. MethodA mixed study was conducted to analyze nursing students’ satisfaction and perceptions (n = 48) about simulated nursing video consultations. ResultsNursing students expressed a high level of satisfaction and positive perceptions about this innovative proposal. ConclusionsSimulated nursing video consultations could be considered as another choice of high-fidelity simulation not only in the current COVID-19 situation, but its use could be extended to other contexts.

The CoViBE: An Innovating Self-Paced Elearning to Teach Virtually Bench-Top Practice

COVID-19 pandemic is a disaster and prolonged crisis that has disrupted the education of millions of students with the closure of schools and universities in world-wide. This hard situation rises the necessity to develop a new teaching method to solve the problem of the massive disruption specially to practice work access. The goal of this paper is to set-up an innovative teaching approach for practical work. The comic as a new self-paced e-learning product to teach bench-top practice: the “CoViBE’’ which means Comic Virtual Bench-top Elearning. For using comics to transform practical work sessions by distance you should at first list all the steps that you need to perform your experiment. Then, you choose the actors and material images. For the third step, you have to decide how many frames you need to your comic trip to develop the following instructions: How to do, What to do, What not to do and What to ask. Moreover, you need to provide flashbacks to remind students what kind of knowledges they need to carry on their experiment; the final step is to include humor. Using online survey, positive feedbacks of 179 students on the CoViBE impact about their learning of practical work allowed us to determine around 80% of satisfaction. Finally, during any other situations for the training period, the CoViBE concept could be used in the future to complete practical work session for revisions, for the internationalization of this education system through distance work and for a hybrid education system.

Mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic: a snapshot from Malaysia into the coping strategies for pre-service teachers’ education

ABSTRACT As Covid-19 cases increased rapidly in Malaysia, the Movement Control Order was imposed nationwide by the government, resulting in immediate closure of schools and universities. Consequently, teaching and learning were instantaneously transformed into distance and remote formats. This article offers a snapshot into how teacher educators and student teachers, coped with the unprecedented situation. We also share our reflections and examination of the online teaching and learning experiences through the lens of TPACK and online learning models. A major implication for both teacher educators and student teachers is to acquire TPACK – technological knowledge and technological pedagogical knowledge to ensure learning continuity and equity.

Covid- 19 and the future of practicum in teacher education in Zimbabwe: Rethinking the ‘new normal’ in quality assurance for teacher certification

ABSTRACT This article examines the policy and quality assurance debates in teacher education ensuing at one school of education in Zimbabwe following the sudden closure of schools and universities due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Unfortunately, final year university pre-service teacher education students’ practicum assessment could not be finalised. The practicum is a critical component in teacher education as it engenders professional transformation, reflection and growth. Unlike other academic modules which could be completed via online and distance education, the practicum, being a practical undertaking in a classroom situation, presented unique challenges. The research question that the article addresses is: How would certification of teachers be finalised when this time-tested assessment had not been done?The articleemploys content and discourse analysis to unpack the philosophical and professional arguments being advanced by faculty, in order to understand how they are likely to determine future directions of teacher education. The argument is that the emerging ‘new normal’ should not compromise the quality assurance mechanisms developed overtime.

El Efecto del COVID-19 en la Economía y la Educación: Estrategias para la Educación Virtual de Colombia

El virus del COVID-19 fue detectado por primera vez en diciembre del año 2019 en China, posteriormente los primeros meses del año 2020 se propagó por varios países del mundo, llegando de esta manera a Colombia. Debido a la pandemia según la Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá (2020): hay más de 500,000 empresas en Colombia que afrontan una enorme presión financiera. Una vez que la amenaza de COVID-19 disminuya, la vida y el trabajo no pueden retroceder en el tiempo. La implementación del teletrabajo para el desarrollo laboral de la empresa y su personal es fundamental en tiempos de crisis sanitarias. El cierre de centros educativos, escuelas primarias, intermedias y universidades fue una de las primeras medidas adoptadas por el Gobierno Nacional para prevenir la propagación del coronavirus. De esta manera las instituciones educativas del país se enfrentan a una amenaza o dificultad para el aprendizaje. El objetivo de este ensayo es mostrar los efectos del COVID-19 en la economía y la educación colombiana como también las estrategias recomendadas para la educación virtual.

Communication, collaboration and contagion: "Virtualisation" of anatomy during COVID-19.

COVID‐19 has generated a global need for technologies that enable communication, collaboration, education and scientific discourse whilst maintaining physical distance. University closures due to COVID‐19 and physical distancing measures disrupt academic activities that previously occurred face‐to‐face. Restrictions placed on universities due to COVID‐19 have precluded most conventional forms of education, assessment, research and scientific discourse. Anatomists now require valid, robust and easy‐to‐use communication tools to facilitate remote teaching, learning and research. Recent advances in communication, video conferencing and digital technologies may facilitate continuity of teaching and research activities. Examples include highly‐interactive video conferencing technology, collaborative tools, social media and networking platforms. In this narrative review, we examine the utility of these technologies in supporting effective communication and professional activities of anatomists during COVID‐19 and after.

Containing SARS-CoV-2 in Belize

Belize is a small Caribbean country in Central America with limited resources in public health. Amidst a global pandemic, urgent attention was given to mitigating the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in order to prevent a public health catastrophe. Early intervention on a national level was key to preventing the importation of cases and subsequent community transmission. Limiting the conglomeration of people, implementation of curfews, closures of school and universities, government-mandated social distancing, and extensive contact tracing may have mitigated the exponential spread of COVID-19. Mandatory mask-wearing in public may have helped to prevent spread between asymptomatic carriers to susceptible individuals. A low population density may have also contributed to containing the virus.

Particle modeling of the spreading of coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

By the end of July 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had infected more than 17 × 106 people and had spread to almost all countries worldwide. In response, many countries all over the world have used different methods to reduce the infection rate, such as case isolation, closure of schools and universities, banning public events, and forcing social distancing, including local and national lockdowns. In our work, we use a Monte Carlo based algorithm to predict the virus infection rate for different population densities using the most recent epidemic data. We test the spread of the coronavirus using three different lockdown models and eight various combinations of constraints, which allow us to examine the efficiency of each model and constraint. In this paper, we have tested three different time-cyclic patterns of no-restriction/lockdown patterns. This model’s main prediction is that a cyclic schedule of no-restrictions/lockdowns that contains at least ten days of lockdown for each time cycle can help control the virus infection. In particular, this model reduces the infection rate when accompanied by social distancing and complete isolation of symptomatic patients.

Mapping the world: Education: An unprecedented crisis

The closure of schools and universities around the world to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, caused a major education crisis that reached its peak in mid-April 2020. Between 16 and 19 April, schools shut down in more than 190 countries, affecting 1.57 billion children and young people – over ninety per cent of all learners. Throughout the health crisis, UNESCO monitored the situation globally, by publishing a map of school closures on its website.

Flexible Learning as an Instructional Modality in Environmental Science Course during COVID-19

The novel coronavirus has forced the closure of schools and universities among countries with COVID-19 cases. Such move has reshaped the contour of education by shifting from face-to-face instruction to full online learning or flexible learning. Among the latter modalities of instruction, flexible learning (FL) appears to be the most practical because it lacks restriction of time, place, and pace of study. This study then aimed to explore the effectiveness of FL as an instructional modality in environmental science course following the action research method. In particular, perception on FL and environmental attitudes were evaluated at the end of the course. Results revealed that FL promotes authentic learning, active learning, and student autonomy. In terms of environmental attitudes, there maybe contrasting views in environmental issues presented to them but their views were anchored on their readings suggesting that the students read the course materials even without the presence of the teachers.

Education: An opportunity to reinvent teaching

More than 1.5 billion students – or ninety per cent of the world’s student population – have been affected by temporary closures of schools and universities in 2020 due to the health crisis, according to UNESCO. Educational institutions have been forced, almost overnight, to switch to remote learning platforms and devise alternative teaching methods.

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS DURING PANDEMIC. A CASE STUDY ON A FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIAL-POLITICAL SCIENCE UNDERGRADUATES.

In this paper, we present some key features regarding a quantitative panel study conducted in 2020 at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social-Political Science, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași. To examine how the undergraduates perceive distance learning in the context of university closure due to the spread of COVID-19 disease, we organized two „waves" of research by questionnaire: 593 respondents in March 2020 and 499 respondents in June 2020, both samples being representative. This research had four main objectives: (a) studying comparatively the university students opinion about the decision to suspend the traditional face-to-face teaching activities; (b) studying the university students opinion about the online communications with professor or tutors, with their colleagues; (c) studying the main online activities initiated during the pandemic for academic formation; (d) constructing a statistical index of pandemic difficulties for comparative analysis within specific groups of the target population. Some of the conclusions of this study showed that during this semester, marked by pandemic context, the intensity level of the communication process between students and their teachers has increased relatively balanced for all years of study. Also, the online teaching activities carried out at a constant pace respected the pre-pandemic schedule. Thus, the time spent on learning was quite similar compared with the pre-pandemic period.

Teacher education in times of COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal: national, institutional and pedagogical responses

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the national, institutional and pedagogical responses as a result of the closure of schools and universities in March 2020 in Portugal. It includes a brief description and analysis of the initiatives and responses to the crisis as well as the difficulties, the challenges and the opportunities. The paper concludes with the discussion of the implications for teaching and teacher education in such uncertain times, particularly in regard to the role of practice as well as issues of mentoring within the context of a practicum as a ‘real practice’ versus ‘an ideal(ised) practice’.

Knowledge and Attitudes of Jordanians toward COVID-19 pandemic: A CrossSectional Survey

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the knowledge, perception and attitudes of Jordanians regarding COVID-19 and the implementation of control measures by the government. Methods: An online survey of 25 questions assessing knowledge of COVID-19 prevention methods and attitudes toward government regulations to decrease the spread of the virus skills was conducted through social media networks between March 21 and March 22, 2020, the same day a national curfew was implemented. Results: A total of 3087 participants completed the survey. About 61.9% were females, 78.1% aged 18 to 40 years, and 40.4% were employed. The vast majority (99%) of the population reported to have at least some information about the virus. Almost half (45.2%) reported television as the main source of information about COVID-19. About 92.3% understood the importance of hand washing. About 90.5% considered the governmental measures excellent or very good, 8.7% rated measures good, 0.8% rated measures bad or very bad. Many supported government actions with 97.7% supporting the curfew decision, and 68.1% favoring school and university closure and the use of remote-education until the outbreak is resolved. The majority understood the importance of handwashing (92.3%) with 34.8% reporting washing their hands more than three times daily. Conclusions: Overall, participants demonstrated good knowledge about COVID-19 and had favorable attitudes toward government actions during the first 24 hours of the curfew. This suggests Jordan’s efforts towards COVID-19 were well received by the general public.

A sharp increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and case fatality rates after lifting the lockdown in Kurdistan region of Iraq

With the appearance of first cases of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), strict control measures were implemented in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to combat the infection. These measures included the closure of schools and universities, the closure of borders and airports, cancellation of public and religious gatherings, and mandatory quarantine for persons returning from traveling abroad. Such measures have played a major role in the control of COVID-19 spread. However, due to social and economic pressures, the government relaxed the lockdown. After relaxing the measures, a sharp increase in the number of patients was noticed. Besides, there was a significant increase in the number of symptomatic patients and the case fatality rate was doubled. In addition, the outbreak and outbreak response led to the loss of trust and a breakdown in relations between the society and local authority. To minimize the consequences for population health, local authority should have a plan that balances between health imperatives and socioeconomic imperatives. Finally, to be successful in controlling the infection, the government must rebuild public trust in the handling of COVID-19 outbreak and compensate people for lost earnings.

International Trends of Remote Teaching Ordered in Light of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and its Most Popular Video Conferencing Applications that Implement Communication

The global coronavirus pandemic that emerged at the end of 2019 and will reach its peak in 2020 has affected education systems worldwide and led to widespread, complete closure of schools, universities, and colleges. UNESCO estimates that a total of nearly 1.6 billion students worldwide have been affected by the closures of educational institutions. The indicator was the highest in the period from April 1 to April 5, when exactly 1,598,099,008 students were affected by the measures. This accounted for 91.3% of the world’s total learning community, with a total of 193 countries providing full nationwide remote teaching. In response to school clo-sures, UNESCO has proposed distance learning programs as well as open educational applications and platforms that have ena-bled schools and teachers to reach their students remotely and make online education easier (UNESCO, 2020). In addition to reviewing the recent literature and monitoring lockdown measures, the study also suggests a number of specific solutions.

Coronavirus lockdown effect on type 1 diabetes management οn children wearing insulin pump equipped with continuous glucose monitoring system

AimsOn the 10th of March, Greece imposed the closure of schools and universities and a full lockdown a few days later in order to counter the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. Our aim was to monitor the effect of the coronavirus lockdown in diabetes management in children with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) wearing insulin pump equipped with continuous glucose monitoring system. MethodsIn 34 children with T1DM on Medtronic 640G insulin pump equipped with the Enlite Sensor uploaded CareLink data were categorized in 2 three-week periods before and after the 10th of March. ResultsMean time in range (TIR) did not significantly differ between the two periods. However, a significantly higher Coefficient of Variation (CV) indicating an increased glucose variability in the pre-lockdown period was observed (39.52% versus 37.40%, p = 0.011). Blood glucose readings were significantly fewer during the lockdown period (7.91 versus 7.41, p = 0.001). No significant difference was recorded regarding the total daily dose of insulin and the reported carbohydrates consumed. However, the meal schedule has changed dramatically as the percentage of breakfast consumed before 10.00 a.m. has fallen from 80.67% to 41.46% (p < 0.001) during the lockdown. Correspondingly, the percentage of dinner consumption before 10.00 p.m. significantly fell during the lockdown period (60.22% versus 53.78%, p = 0.019). ConclusionsGlycemic control during the coronavirus lockdown can be adequately achieved and be comparable to the pre-lockdown period in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus wearing insulin pump equipped with sensor.

COVID-19 and anatomy: Stimulus and initial response.

The outbreak of COVID-19, resulting from widespread transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, represents one of the foremost current challenges to societies across the globe, with few areas of life remaining untouched. Here, we detail the immediate impact that COVID-19 has had on the teaching and practice of anatomy, providing specific examples of the varied responses from several UK, Irish and German universities and medical schools. Alongside significant issues for, and suspension of, body donation programmes, the widespread closure of university campuses has led to challenges in delivering anatomy education via online methods, a particular problem for a practical, experience-based subject such as anatomy. We discuss the short-term consequences of COVID-19 for body donation programmes and anatomical education, and highlight issues and challenges that will need to be addressed in the medium to long term in order to restore anatomy education and practice throughout the world.

Peer mentoring for medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic via a social media platform.

In many contexts, medical students collaborate with health care workers to deliver patient management and care in emergencies such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Notwithstanding this, medical students are experiencing an unintended pause in education as a result of global university closure over COVID-19 concerns. In both situations, students find themselves having to cope with mental and emotional issues, including stress, anxiety and fear, that may require significant psychological and physical effort. Therefore, it is important that medical schools not only care about student mental health, but also implement strategies to support students’ understanding of crisis management, self-mental care and other principal measures in order to strengthen the students' coping skills and mental preparedness. In collaboration with students at Shiraz University’s medical school, a social media platform that employed the near-peer mentoring method1 was created. It involved senior medical students in instructing junior medical students in coping with the anxiety and stress brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. These senior students had received about 40 hours of training in teaching and learning methods, communication skills and effective consulting techniques under the supervision of faculty staff during the preceding 3 years.1 A total of 371 junior students joined this group. Students communicated with one another, exchanging thoughts and feelings about mental and psychological issues. A total of 10 senior students, under the supervision of expert faculty members, offered suitable solutions to psychological concerns and supported junior students in managing his or her emotions about this highly contagious disease. The senior students recommended stress management and relaxation techniques, engagement in exercise, the maintenance of online contact with family and friends, and the use of time management techniques during quarantine. General discussion about the best learning strategies for online classes also took place. A valid and reliable questionnaire, based on our previous study,1 was used to measure the effects of this activity. Overall, 71% of junior medical students believed the social media platform had a significant impact in terms of helping them adjust faster to the present emergency conditions. The only challenge students mentioned was that some were not sure how to apply the information gained to personal situations as the students continued to desire real and practical face to face consultation. Nonetheless, students generally described the participation in this initiative as a unique experience that was beneficial to professional growth. The provision of care and support has a critical role in promoting mental health in medical students. Building a peer mentoring group can help. With the experience achieved through working with junior students in this crisis, senior medical students found themselves increasingly able to provide timely and appropriate psychological advice for others. The experience, therefore, appeared to be as important for professional growth as it was for the psychological relief of more junior students. In resonance with the maxim that ‘teaching is learning twice,’ we have learned that by taking on peer mentoring leadership responsibility, senior students can further develop the skills needed to be competent physicians.