The Presence of House Dust Mites in Residences and Classrooms of Students with Allergic Rhinitis

Allergy is still a health problem in Indonesia. One of the manifestations of allergies is allergic rhinitis. Many factors can trigger the recurrence of rhinitis, including exposure to house dust mites. This study aims to identify the population of house dust mites in the classrooms and student residences. This study was participated by 74 FK UNRI students with allergic rhinitis. The samples included dust collected from residences and classrooms consisting of four large classrooms, three small classrooms, four laboratories, two examination rooms, 12 skills lab rooms, and 15 tutorial rooms. Detection of dust was performed using the direct method. The results showed that no classroom (0%) was found with house dust mites. However, there were 37.8% of residences were positive. Based on the result, it can be concluded that the high population of house dust mites in the students’ residences becomes an essential factor as a chronic stressor for allergic rhinitis.

University Instructors’ Perceptions toward Online Teaching at the Onset of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Lebanon: A Descriptive Study

Purpose: The study aims at understanding to what extent university instructors are ready for the sudden shift from face-to-face teaching to online teaching and how they perceive the usefulness and feasibility of this new modality of teaching. Methodology/Approach/Design: Faculty members from the nine campuses of the largest private university in Lebanon were invited to participate in the completion of a survey, made available in English and Arabic. The survey was completed by 692 respondents. Descriptive analyses were performed by summarizing the count and percentage of responses within each category. Results: Analyses showed that university instructors possess the infrastructure for online teaching. Moreover, they reported positive perceptions about their readiness to teach online and about the feasibility and usefulness of online teaching. However, instructors reported that online teaching was deficient in assessment, teaching large classrooms, and delivering the practical components of the courses they taught. Practical Implications: Findings suggest that instructors require formal training on how to integrate pedagogy with technology. Originality/Value: Since online instruction is new in Lebanon, the study findings can help universities and other educational institutions direct their efforts in their endeavor to improve their online experience.

A Real-time Interactive Visualizer for Large Classroom

In improving the teaching and learning experience in a classroom environment, it is crucial for a teacher to have a fair idea about the students who need help during a lecture. However, teachers of large classes usually face difficulties in identifying the students who are in a critical state. The current methods for classroom visualization are limited in showing both the status and location of a large number of students in a limited display area. Additionally, comprehension of the states adds cognitive load on the teacher working in a time-constrained classroom environment. In this article, we propose a two-level visualizer for large classrooms to address the challenges. In the first level, the visualizer generates a colored matrix representation of the classroom. The colored matrix is a quantitative illustration of the status of the class in terms of student clusters. We use three colors: red, yellow, and green, indicating the most critical, less critical, and the normal cluster on the screen, respectively. With tap/click on the first level, detailed information for a cluster is visualized as the second level. We conducted extensive studies for our visualizer in a simulated classroom with 12 tasks and 27 teacher participants. The results show that the visualizer is efficient and usable.

Multisource Feedback as an Experiential Learning Enabler in Large-Format Management Classes

An extensive body of literature has examined the benefits and challenges of experiential learning in higher education. At the same time, colleges and universities have increased the utilization of large class sections, both online and face-to-face. To date, little research has examined mechanisms for leveraging the benefits, while mitigating the challenges, of experiential learning in large classes. This article seeks to address some of the inherent problems of experiential learning activities in large classes by providing an extension of Kolb’s experiential learning framework. Drawing on the multisource feedback literature, we integrate a multisource evaluation process employing self-assessment, peer collaboration, and community engagement to enhance experiential learning outcomes. We propose that this process will help reduce faculty feedback and coaching requirements, while increasing student engagement and career readiness in large classes. We contend that our framework provides a viable model to facilitate student learning, sheds light on an understudied area of pedagogy, and addresses a practical issue facing management instructors in large classrooms. We conclude by offering a pilot study and implementation examples in three different types of management classes as well as proposing future research directions.

Media Cici Drama dalam Pembelajaran Teks Drama Kelas VIII

Drama learning in grade VIII of Junior High School obtains several problems. These problems include students who are less active in participating in learning, intake of students in understanding drama material is low, and the learning media used are less varied. Therefore, teacher creativity is really needed, especially in presenting interesting and effective learning media. Based on that, this article is to study the media design for drama texts learning called "Cici Drama" (Laci Tujuh Kunci Drama). The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative method. The objectives of this study include describing the media, the criteria for selecting media, how to make media, how to use them in the classroom, and their strengths and weaknesses. The results showed that the appearance of "Cici Drama Media" had the right visuals and contents to achieve the goals of drama text learning in grade VIII. The way to make the media is relatively easy and does not require large costs. The way to use the media in the class tends to be easy and does not require special skills. For its weakness, this media requires any development by adding a slot on the right side of the main body for use in large classrooms.

TESTING COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT) THROUGH ENGLISH FOR TODAY (EFT) IN BANGLADESH: CHALLENGES FACED BY TERTIARY STUDENTS INITIALLY

The idea of using language as a tool of communication is the main principle of the communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. English for today (EFT) as a textbook was designed to develop the overall English language competence at a higher secondary level. This paper aims at justifying the suitability of EFT for implementing communicative language teaching in Bangladesh. This study shows English for today is not effective for creating communicative competence among its learners. Moreover, the tertiary students initially face challenges while enrolling in undergraduate programs under the medium of instruction is English. Data have been collected through classroom observation, interviews with teachers, students, and experts. Structured questionnaires for students, teachers, and experts have been used as tools for data collection. Finally, the paper concludes that revised abbreviations may be suitably adaptable to impose a communicative language teaching approach by overcoming the challenges in the large classrooms in Bangladesh.

ViTA: A flexible CAD-tool-independent automatic grading platform for two-dimensional CAD drawings

Grading engineering drawings takes a significant amount of an instructor’s time, especially in large classrooms. In many cases, teaching assistants help with grading, adding levels of inconsistency and unfairness. To help in grading automation of CAD drawings, this paper introduces a novel tool that can completely automate the grading process after students submit their work. The introduced tool, called Virtual Teaching Assistant (ViTA), is a CAD-tool-independent platform that can work with exported drawings originating from different CAD software having different export settings. Using computer vision techniques applied to exported images of the drawings, ViTA can not only recognize whether or not a two-dimensional (2 D) drawing is correct, but also offers the detection of many important orthographic and sectional view mistakes such as mistakes in structural features, outline, hatching, orientation, scale, line thickness, colors, and views. We show ViTA’s accuracy and its relevance in the automated grading of 2 D CAD drawings by evaluating it using 500 student drawings created with three different CAD software.