scholarly journals Maintaining Effort and Interest despite Challenges during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Process Tracing Approach to a Teacher’s Grit during an Online L2 Course

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-60
Author(s):  
Majid Elahi Shirvan ◽  
Nigel Mantou Lou ◽  
Mojdeh Shahnama ◽  
Elham Yazdanmehr

Grit—the ability to maintain effort and interest for long-term goals—is argued to be an important individual factor for achievement, especially in the face of obstacles. However, little research has examined the possible fluctuations of effort and interest and how challenges may trigger the changes of effort and interest. In this study, we measured a teacher’s grit at the beginning of an online course during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we focused on the changes in a teacher’s effort and interest throughout the course. In this case study we unpacked the explanations of possible changes in grit via process tracing. Despite the fact that the teacher scored high on the grit scale, we found that the sudden shift from in-person to online teaching had put much pressure and demand on the teacher. The new teaching challenge influenced the teacher’s self-evaluation of their teaching performance and students’ engagement, which led to changes in effort and interest. Therefore, we argue that one’s average grit (e.g., measured by grit scale) cannot be the representation of their ability to maintain interest and effort on different occasions due to the influence of different situational causes or pressure. Specifically, during the course, the teacher’s effort and interest underwent changes on four occasions, characterized by four distinct dynamic patterns in terms of the interaction of high and low interest and effort. The four emerging patterns of L2 teacher effort and interest indicate that the construct of grit could be explained in terms of four dynamic clusters or archetypes. This study provides implications for understanding the complex dynamic nature of grit, which can be further explored through cluster analytic approaches in future studies.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciano Raso ◽  
Jan Kwakkel ◽  
Jos Timmermans

Climate change raises serious concerns for policymakers that want to ensure the success of long-term policies. To guarantee satisfactory decisions in the face of deep uncertainties, adaptive policy pathways might be used. Adaptive policy pathways are designed to take actions according to how the future will actually unfold. In adaptive pathways, a monitoring system collects the evidence required for activating the next adaptive action. This monitoring system is made of signposts and triggers. Signposts are indicators that track the performance of the pathway. When signposts reach pre-specified trigger values, the next action on the pathway is implemented. The effectiveness of the monitoring system is pivotal to the success of adaptive policy pathways, therefore the decision-makers would like to have sufficient confidence about the future capacity to adapt on time. “On time” means activating the next action on a pathway neither so early that it incurs unnecessary costs, nor so late that it incurs avoidable damages. In this paper, we show how mapping the relations between triggers and the probability of misclassification errors inform the level of confidence that a monitoring system for adaptive policy pathways can provide. Specifically, we present the “trigger-probability” mapping and the “trigger-consequences” mappings. The former mapping displays the interplay between trigger values for a given signpost and the level of confidence regarding whether change occurs and adaptation is needed. The latter mapping displays the interplay between trigger values for a given signpost and the consequences of misclassification errors for both adapting the policy or not. In a case study, we illustrate how these mappings can be used to test the effectiveness of a monitoring system, and how they can be integrated into the process of designing an adaptive policy.


Author(s):  
A. Juan ◽  
J. Faulin ◽  
P. Fonseca ◽  
C. Steegmann ◽  
L. Pla ◽  
...  

This chapter presents a case study of online teaching in Statistics and Operations Research (OR) at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). UOC is a purely online university with headquarters in Barcelona, Spain, with students from many countries. As common to most math-related knowledge areas, teaching and learning Statistics and OR present difficult challenges in traditional higher education. These issues are exacerbated in online environments where face-to-face interactions between students and instructors as well as among students themselves are limited or non-existent. Despite these difficulties, as evidenced in the global growth of online course offerings, Web-based instruction offers comparative benefits to traditional face-to-face instruction. While there exists a plethora of literature covering experiences and best practices in traditional face-to-face instruction in mathematics, there is a lack of research describing long-term successful experiences in Statistics and OR online courses. Based on the authors’ experiences during the last decade, this chapter aims to share some insights on how to design and develop successful online courses in these knowledge areas.


Author(s):  
Omiunota N. Ukpokodu

This case study documents one teacher educator’s successful adaptations of traditional pedagogies in online teaching. Specifically, using data from a graduate online course, it examines the general concern and beliefs that online teaching is an inadequate and inappropriate substitute for the traditional faceto- face instruction in a teacher education course aimed at transformative learning. Both quantitative and qualitative data revealed that online teaching evidenced successful student quality learning and adaptability of traditional pedagogies. It discusses the promises and challenges associated with designing and implementing an online teacher education course.


Author(s):  
Thomas G. Reio ◽  
Cyntianna C. Ledesma Ortega

Online education continues to grow appreciably to meet both institutional needs for short- and long-term viability and student personal and professional needs for flexible delivery of course offerings. Faculty remains decidedly ambivalent, however, about the legitimacy of online course offerings. This doubt emerges from perceptions of: increased workloads as compared to face-to-face courses, inadequate compensation, lack of a fair reward system for promotion and tenure, and online course inferiority as a means of fostering optimal learning. After being identified through a structured review of recent empirical research, demotivators (e.g., questionable learning outcomes) and motivators (e.g., opportunity for personal growth) of faculty online teaching participation are examined through the lens of self-determination theory. Recommendations such as providing increased support are put forward to increase the likelihood of faculty online teaching.


2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-62
Author(s):  
Rafał Wróbel ◽  
Ilona Wróbel

Purpose: The paper presents the results of the review of literature and of the legal regulations in the field of the protection of critical infrastructure in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic. The assumed main goal was to determine the requirements for protecting elements catalogued in 11 critical infrastructure systems, in the face of the risk of losing key personnel and the need to maintain continuity of critical infrastructure operations. Introduction: The first part of the paper discusses the essence and methods of identifying critical infrastructure in Poland. Further on, possible clauses were identified of an epidemic and its impact on individual critical infrastructure systems, with particular focus on the fact that if an epidemic occurs, there may be a temporary or long-term shortage of personnel essential to the business continuity of the facilities, installations and elements included in critical infrastructure. Then, the legal solutions for maintaining the operating continuity of critical infrastructure during COVID-19 implemented in 2020 were presented, pointing to legal tools aimed at ensuring the resilience of critical infrastructure by securing key resource, i.e. the employees. Methodology: Literature research and qualitative analysis were carried out of the legal acts announced in 2020 related to enhancing the resilience of critical infrastructure, and a review was carried out of the recommendations and guidelines addressed to critical infrastructure operators, which were issued in March and September of 2020. The obtained results were analysed using the following: publications, acts of the Polish law, recommendations and guidelines published on the websites of governmental institutions, interviews with independent experts. Conclusions: The first regulations on specific arrangements meant to prevent, counteract and combat COVID-19, other contagious diseases and crisis situations caused by them did not contain any provisions that would be supportive of the protective capacity of the critical infrastructure elements in Poland. The first document in this respect, RCB guidelines of 16 March 2020 have not been formalised yet in the legal system. The so-called Shield 2.0 of 31 March 2021 introduced to the 15x of the COVID-19 Act the tools for specific employers entitled to take advantage of new, previously unavailable opportunities to ensure the continuity of services. Those entitlements made it possible to change the work system or work schedule of employees, to instruct them to work overtime, as well as to refuse to grant annual leave or to cancel it. Keywords: critical infrastructure, pandemic, COVID-19, law, key personel Type of article: case study


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-67
Author(s):  
Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij ◽  
Nick Williams

On traditional information markets (TIMs), rewards are tied to the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of events external to the market, such as some particular candidate winning an election. For that reason, they can only be used when it is possible to wait for some external event to resolve the market. In cases involving long time-horizons or counterfactual events, this is not an option. Hence, the need for a self-resolving information market (SRIM), resolved with reference to factors internal to the market itself. In the present paper, we first offer some theoretical reasons for thinking that, since the only thing that can be expected to be salient to all participants on a SRIM is the content of the question bet on, a convention will arise of taking that question at face value, and betting accordingly, in which case trading behaviour on SRIMs can be expected to be identical to that on TIMs. This is the ‘face value’ hypothesis. If this hypothesis holds, SRIMs have the potential of incorporating the accuracy of TIMs while shedding their limitations in relation to long-term predictions and the evaluation of counterfactuals. We then report on a laboratory experiment that demonstrates that trading behaviour can indeed come out highly similar across SRIMs and TIMs. As such, the study can be thought of as an experimental case study on SRIMs. Finally, we discuss some limitations of the study, and also points towards fruitful areas of future research in light of our results.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa May ◽  
Tamara Runyon

More information, including a guide to LabScrum, can be found at labscrum.org There are many challenges in the work of academic research labs, such as a lack of established process for planning, competing commitments requiring frequent task switching, and long delays in decisions. Silos of information create opacity of knowledge, and the individual nature of much of the work can create isolation that is demotivating.We were curious to see if an Agile-based project management approach could provide value in the face of these challenges. The Scrum framework seemed like a good place to start – lightweight, yet with more frequent and shorter feedback loops than before. As an experiment, we implemented Scrum with one lab in the Center for Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oregon. We continue to adapt and evolve as the implementation spreads to other labs and we work with an ever growing number of scientists. The adaption from Scrum to LabScrum took a great deal of consideration and experimentation given significant differences in goals, constraints, and environment between industry and academia. We named our adaptation LabScrum to reflect the customization for the academic research lab context. Using LabScrum, lab personnel are seeing increased productivity and increased visibility of short,medium, and long term planning and goals. Personnel are also benefiting from improved graduate student training, increased information sharing/collaboration, and improved social support and positive lab culture.


Legal Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Aisling McMahon ◽  
Edana Richardson

Abstract This paper focuses on the drivers steering companies’ behaviour over uses of patented health technologies, taking Covid-19 as a case study. Global equitable access to health technologies is vital to bringing the pandemic under control. Reflecting this, global mechanisms for rightsholders to share intellectual property rights, data and know-how over such health technologies have been developed. Yet, to date, there is limited support from corporate rightsholders for such mechanisms. Instead, health technologies have been licensed largely based on bilateral deals, with vast global inequalities emerging. Given the traditional focus within company law on prioritising shareholders' short-term financial value, we argue that it is unsurprising that many corporate rightsholders adopt a protectionist approach to patents, even in the face of health crises. However, we argue that the tide may now be starting to shift, catalysed by an emergence of engaged shareholders petitioning for socially responsible corporate behaviour, including for uses of intellectual property over health technologies in a manner that more clearly aligns with public interests. If harnessed and encouraged, such engaged shareholder behaviour could present an opportunity to reframe the conception of shareholder value towards one that considers a long-term sustainable approach and ultimately to shift corporate behaviour around uses of intellectual property over health technologies to take public interests into account.


Author(s):  
Melanie Shaw ◽  
Kelley Walters ◽  
Todd Kane ◽  
David Long

In this case study research, data were gathered from faculty and students who have online teaching or learning experience to determine the types of assignments, activities, and assessments that are used in the online classroom. Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered on diverse facets of the online classroom experience from level of education, to field of study, and Learning Management System experience. This study filled a gap in the literature of types of course activities required in online classes. This case study includes details about assignments, assessments, activities, discussions, and live sessions that instructors can use in the development of online classes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. A409
Author(s):  
SL Klijn ◽  
EB Torkilseng ◽  
D Tyas ◽  
A Sowdani ◽  
B Malcolm ◽  
...  

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