Black boxes on a video call. Silence after asking a question. An empty discussion board. Teaching online can make it difficult to see when students need extra help.
85% of students said the pandemic has negatively affected their grades and academic performance [1]. To prevent failing, how can you spot students falling behind and help them succeed online before it’s too late?
By: Lynn Lafave
From education to eating, the pandemic has impacted every aspect of society. We asked Dr. Lynne Lafave, the co-author of Nutrition: A Functional Approach, how COVID-19 has affected our nutrition and how students can learn to build healthier eating habits during these stressful times.
A great deal of research world-wide has investigated predictors of healthy and unhealthy eating habits. Food prepared and eaten at home has been generally found to be healthier with higher nutrient density (more nutrients per calorie eaten) and lower energy overall. As a result, preparing and eating food at home is considered an eating habit associated with improved health and nutrient sufficiency.
In contrast, what we know is that adults, adolescents, and children are more likely to eat nutrient-poor energy-dense foods when the food is eaten away from home, school, or work. Examples of these nutrient-poor energy-dense foods include pastries, chips, soft drinks, and confections (candies and chocolate). The connecting characteristic is the ultra-processed nature of these foods and consuming larger proportions of these foods is a strong predictor of lower dietary quality and weight gain. Therefore, frequent eating food away from home is considered an unhealthy eating habit.
So, when various physical distancing restrictions were implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and people spent more time at home, it seemed a reasonable hypothesis that this could lead to improved healthy eating. But nothing could have been further from the truth.
Researchers quickly began to investigate the effects of COVID on eating habits and found some surprising results. In Italy, one of the first countries to institute lockdown measures, there was a significant increase in chips, sugary drinks, and red meat consumption among children and adolescents.
Evidence continues to trickle in demonstrating that poor dietary choices and increased drinking behaviours have increased world-wide as a result of the pandemic. In fact, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, used her year-end 2020 address to caution Canadians about their higher alcohol consumption and encourage non-alcoholic options.
To understand the impact of the pandemic on eating habits, we first have to understand factors that influence them.
Food choices are driven by a whole host of factors such as physiological aspects (hunger and appetite), cultural and social pressures, dietary components, familial and genetic factors, and cognitive-affective factors. Cognitive-affective factors such as perceived stress, anxiety, and depression may influence food choices which may help us to understand pandemic eating patterns.
Research has linked anxiety and stress to unhealthy lifestyle choices including the desire to eat and drink to feel better. This type of eating as a coping mechanism represents a stress-avoidance strategy of emotional eating to manage negative emotional experiences.
Popular culture addresses these ideas in media and comedy. Just think of a cartoon story about someone who has just broken up with their significant other, diving into a container of ice cream to drown their sorrows. Research evidence demonstrates that being in a state of sadness predisposes individuals to increased consumption of unhealthy foods.
2020 proved to be a challenging year for educators, to say the least. Many instructors, however, rose to the challenge by bringing creative and collaborative teaching ideas into their online classrooms.
To celebrate all the good things that happened in a tough year, we asked instructors to share their successes from the fall 2020 semester.
Here are 4 trends describing what worked well for instructors:
For a generation of students growing up on social media, instructors found that bite-sized activities kept them most engaged and attentive.
New year, new beginnings. Learning to be an online student was a challenge for many of you last semester. Mistakes were made and lessons were learned. With the winter semester just over the horizon, this is your chance for a fresh start by learning from the past.
Unreasonable FUTURE is a unique multi-year initiative bringing together disruptive entrepreneurs to create a more sustainable and equitable future for all. Its founding sponsors are Pearson, Fossil Foundation and Accenture. This Q&A series spotlights a few of the ventures in the program to provide a glimpse into the innovative work that is being nurtured.
Our goal at Re:Coded Labs is to democratize access to quality learning and ensure that youth from underserved communities are prepared for the rapidly changing workforce of today and tomorrow. We do this by offering transformative learning experiences to talented youth and educators, in a range of technical and non-technical skills, with the goal of facilitating high value employment in the digital economy.
We offer three core products / services under one umbrella:
Each of our immersive programs has one goal: to help launch a new tech career for talented youth being left at the margins of the global digital economy. Throughout the programs, students apply theory to real-world problems, learn software development or design skills, and receive instruction and support from industry leaders while maximizing their personal growth. Our students then receive dedicated career support to help them land their first job in the tech sector.
Our intent with these programs is to achieve systemic change in outdated learning models and education systems. We do this by empowering educators to reimagine learning for the future of work using our own pedagogical and metacognition framework.
We develop a range of educational products that enable learners to learn faster and more effectively.
We’re in the midst of a digital revolution and traditional education systems and outdated learning models are failing to prepare youth for the future of work. Nowhere is this more evident than in countries that are already affected by conflict, violence, poverty and disaster.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 has caused massive economic disruption, exacerbating the effects of this technical transformation. While the net impact of this pandemic is uncertain, youth who were already at the margins of the global digital economy risk being further left behind and entering a dangerous cyclical relationship between economic disenfranchisement and instability, unless we ensure they have the skills, resources and networks to thrive. We exist to reconcile this global digital inequality divide by providing youth with in-demand skills and networks in order to create opportunity and good jobs for entire communities.
The inspiration behind what we do comes from witnessing the problem firsthand. In June 2014, I first traveled to Iraq to implement a peace-building initiative for Syrian refugees who had been displaced by the civil war. Upon seeing the lack of access to meaningful education & employment opportunities for youth, I set about researching initiatives that could bridge the education and employment divide in the wake of conflict.
Two years later after securing seed funding, I teamed up with my co-founder Marcello to create an organization with a startup mindset and a mission to empower youth by teaching high-end technical skills for the digital economy. My background is in human rights law whilst Marcello’s is education in emergencies.
Everything and yet nothing! Starting and growing this organization has been one of the steepest learning curves of my life. I came from a legal background without an MBA or any experience running a business. Yet, every failure has been an opportunity to learn and grow. From designing our first programs to managing complex operations in conflict zones to hiring — it’s been a fun challenge. I’m not sure any business book or course can prepare you for what is to come on the journey of social entrepreneurship.
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While many educators use MyLab, Mastering, and Revel to assign homework and assessment, these platforms host a wealth of other engaging activities students can use to improve their understanding of class concepts.
Here are 7 little-known features in MyLab, Mastering, and Revel you can use today. Find 7 more lesser-known features of MyLab, Mastering, and Revel in Part 1 here.
Many students find physics really difficult. Even students with great math skills struggle with the abstract concepts and theory application. To help them visualize concepts better, you can use PhET simulations in Mastering Physics.
These interactive simulations gives students a way to apply what they’ve learned to a real-life scenario by making decisions or changing variables. This low-stakes environment encourages experimentation where students can learn from their mistakes. Not only will students be able to see concepts and theories in action, but also see how physics is used in the real-world.
Technology has impacted almost every aspect of our lives, and education is no exception. With the rise of educational technologies, educators have been exploring new ways to leverage these tools to create more engaging, personalized, and active learning experiences. One of the most effective tools is simulations, a form of experiential learning where students are placed into a real-life scenario to make decisions, take action, and respond in real-time using concepts they’ve learned in class.
We have been creating simulations to supplement our textbooks in collaboration with our authors, one of whom is Dr. Niall Fraser. We spoke with him to hear about his experience in creating simulations for his engineering textbook, Engineering Economics, and his thoughts on how emerging technologies will impact learning.
I was approached to develop some simulations to supplement my textbook ‘Engineering Economics: Financial Decision Making for Engineers’. In the end we developed four simulations through Ametros, nominally designed to each cover a quarter of the text. I had not done this before, so the first one was very much a learning experience for me. As I grew accustomed to creating them, I found it easy to create compelling and useful simulations that exploited the features of the platform.
The course I was designing around has a mathematical basis, and I felt that the chapter material and end-of-chapter study exercises would be sufficient to fully develop the student’s analytic skills. But the course is also very practical. Engineers will use what they have learned frequently in both their professional and personal lives. My goal in the simulations was to create realistic situations where the student had to develop a deeper understanding of the course material in order to apply it to realistic practical issues. Consequently, the calculations in the simulation were very straightforward; the focus was on knowing what calculations to make.
Over the last 20 or 30 years, there has been a strong shift in engineering education to broaden the awareness of engineers’ social and moral responsibilities. Each one of my simulations involved some element of integrating the student’s calculations and decisions within a social/moral/political context.
All students are busy and distracted and sometimes even uncommitted. Many students will learn the course material and study enough to pass the test, and then move on to the next course. Some material will be retained, but often when it is need later in life—either in another school course or in their employment—they have to resort to reviewing their old textbooks and relearning the material. I think simulations, when properly done, can break that cycle.
A good simulation will engage the student. It won’t be just another exercise to complete and forget, but rather a compelling view of a future where the student can use the course content to exert power in the world. It can give them a clear vision of their potential professional life, motivating the very studies they are undertaking. They can more deeply understand the course material, so that the exercises and tests they take are easier because they are not just regurgitating what they have memorized. I think simulations are incredibly valuable and wish they existed when I was a student.
I think AI is the future of learning. It is the natural extension of the textbook. Imagine a textbook that interacted with the reader like a skilled one-on-one teacher, attuned to the student’s pace of learning. That teacher can extend beyond the text material to guide the student in how to apply the course material in their future job or broadly in society. That teacher is also completely up to date with current events and the latest contributions to the student’s discipline and course subject. I believe this is the future of AI and the future of learning, and this is all being accelerated by COVID-19.
Experiential learning, in my view, is just a steppingstone in a shift from a classroom-based model to an AI-driven model. Instead of lecturing, the role of the instructor will be to increasingly guide students to the right AI-based support tool. Eventually the instructor will be an administrator and/or last-resort tutor, and most teaching will be AI based.
Clearly this has enormous implications for the current education system. Universities will physically shrink, and lectures may disappear altogether. On the other hand, I think learning will be far more efficient and students will be far better prepared for their careers.
Jump into it. This is the future, and it is good. There will likely be glitches at the beginning, but I think you will see the value very quickly.
Also, if given the opportunity, invest the effort to make some simulations of your own. I found it relatively easy and certainly lots of fun to create compelling simulations that I know will be very valuable to the instructors and students who use them.
Using technology in the classroom can increase student engagement, encourage collaboration, and drive personalized learning experiences. Many of you may already be using MyLab, Mastering, or Revel in your courses for homework, assessment, and to give students tutorial resources and personalized feedback.
However, you may not have had the time to explore all the student activities you can assign for active learning and fully integrate the tools in your course. Whether you’ve been using these platforms for a long time or a recent adopter, here’s a quick look at 7 lesser-known features in these platforms:
As companies increasingly rely on data to drive business decisions, it’s crucial that students have the skills to turn data into a competitive advantage and meet the latest CPA competencies.
The Data Analytics projects in MyLab will help students learn how to analyze data through hands-on exercises to make accounting decisions, video tutorials, and instruction on real-world software. Find specific information on the projects available for each accounting course here.
Ioana Pitu, Queen’s University student and founder of Mistral Spirit, shares 3 approaches for your studying strategy this semester.
