COVID-19 as an Opportunity to Expand the Instructional Portfolio of STEM Librarians

The pivot to online teaching caused by the COVID-19 pandemic enabled science and engineering librarians at Vanderbilt University to expand their teaching roles within graduate-level courses in biomedical engineering, chemistry, and physics. In addition to addressing traditional information literacy skills related to information retrieval and resource evaluation, these new lessons addressed important science process skills such as academic reading, responsible conduct of research, and research data management. A facility with cloud-based teaching tools such as Zoom breakout rooms and Excel for Microsoft 365 allowed for engaging instructional experiences, even within synchronous online instructional environments. By integrating these topics into the graduate curricula, these guest lectures supported the professional development of early career graduate students and deepened relationships with the course instructors of record.

Supports to Improve Academic Outcomes With Racially and Ethnically Minoritized Youth: A Review of Research

For decades, racially and ethnically minoritized youth have been subject to unequal distributions of access and opportunity in school, leading to inequities in academic outcomes. Educators require knowledge and skills to provide relevant instruction and create a more supportive, effective classroom environment. This systematic review includes 24 qualitative and quantitative studies in which researchers investigated a culturally responsive classroom intervention or practice to promote academic outcomes for racially and ethnically minoritized youth. Within these studies, authors described several approaches to promote academic success: (a) developing authentic partnerships with families, (b) using effective pedagogy with students’ culture infused, and (c) accessing rigorous professional development. In addition, studies were assessed for methodological quality, and qualitative works met design standards more often than the quantitative studies reviewed. Implications include the need for additional research to inform comprehensive support for educators to design effective instructional environments for all students, especially those who have historically encountered systemic barriers in school.

Lowering barriers to active learning: a novel approach for online instructional environments

The value of active learning for increasing student comprehension and retention of science, technology, e,ngineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts within undergraduate courses has proven to be beneficial many times over; however, barriers still exist for both instructors and students. For example, instructors are often left to decide what type of active learning activities to incorporate and how to implement them yet receive little to no formal training about how to do this effectively. Additionally, student resistance to active learning persists, which adds to the pressure faced by some instructors. Compounding these issues is the absence of high-speed Internet in some regions, which makes accessing active learning activities, many of which are offered through online commercial programs, impractical if not impossible for some students. This problem was highlighted during the pandemic when courses transitioned to being partially or fully online. In this article, I describe a novel active learning method that encourages students to cognitively engage with physiology concepts by using digital images to build structures and processes using an approach that is more accessible to everyone, regardless of Internet capabilities. This approach also provides instructors an option for creating their own active learning activity that may be more suitable for their specific level of students or learning outcomes.

Touch and Social Interaction

Our understanding of touch as a basic and complex sense is informed by phenomenological perspectives on our corporeal “being-in-the-world” and the notion of intercorporeality (Merleau-Ponty 1964) as well as by sociological perspectives on social life as organized and accomplished through corporeal participation and the interaction order (Goffman 1983). Intercorporeality involves sense-making of oneself and copresent others as body subjects, active in (re)producing a corporeal interaction order that is understood as tactile as well as visual and sonorous. In our review of contemporary ethnographic work, we direct our attention to touch and social interaction and discuss ( a) ritualized supportive interchanges; ( b) moves of compassion that calm a distressed child; ( c) forms of control that socialize the body and gain attention, in particular to create multisensorial, instructional environments; and ( d) forms of touch during care and bodywork in medical and therapeutic contexts. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 50 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Mobile Phones in Classrooms and in Professor-Student Communication: Ukrainian, Omani, and U.S. American College Students’ Perceptions and Practices

<p>The unprecedented expansion of wireless technologies and the global pandemic of 2020-2021, which forced many educational establishments out of traditional face-to-face and into online instructional environments, have created an urgency for achieving a better understanding of the various education-related uses of mobile phones, and students’ attitudes toward them, worldwide. We conducted a questionnaire-based study to explore college undergraduate students’ perceptions and uses of mobile phones, with a focus on instructor-student communication and classroom use, across three diverse cultural contexts: Ukraine, Oman, and the United States. Based on our findings, we suggest that conceptualizing mobile phones as cultural tools and situating their use within cultural discourses illuminates how – and explains why – mobile phones are not “the same” tools for all students. The findings offer insights into students’ (developing) perspectives on uses of mobile phones, and provide grounds from which to formulate productive, and culturally appropriate, means of using them for educational purposes.</p><p> </p>

Implementing Asynchronous Instructional Materials for Students With Learning Disabilities

Online learning continues to be an increasingly popular option in K–12 and postsecondary settings As this trend continues, it is important that the developers of online instructional environments and materials proactively consider the needs of all students. This includes determining how special education and specially designed instruction can be provided in online environments. For students with learning disabilities (LD), a systematic process for determining whether available learning materials address academic standards and specific student needs is key. To support practitioner lesson planning, this column provides guidance for aligning asynchronous learning materials to academic standards and the needs of students with LD. Guidance for supplementing and augmenting available materials is also provided.

Supporting Community Engagement Through Real-World Instructional Learning

The ability to attain knowledge for implementation within real-world environments is a shift in understanding within many instructional environments. Shifting from competency-based understandings wherein a knowledge base is attained as well as implemented towards a capability-based understanding that emphasizes the conceptual framework of information shift towards higher order knowledge creation within novel situations and environments is essential. Lifelong learning within nuanced understandings of new situations and new experiences is essential. Normally, these novel situations and experiences occur within a real-world community environment wherein the learner is critically analyzing new information and opinions from innumerable engaged people within the community. This style of learning is vital to understand within a competency-based learning environment, as well. Therefore, real-world instructional learning embeds the supporting community engagement at distinctly appropriate and impactful points throughout the instructional process, resulting in outstanding conceptual frameworks with the continuous understanding around cognitive engagement.

The Unexpected Online Learning Pivot

The COVID-19 pandemic that swelled into an economic maelstrom during the year 2020 also focused a direct hit on higher education. As faculty and students were heading into spring break, the seismic impact of impending changes were realized. Within the digital age, the technology has raised an ever-increasing recognition of differentiated styles of teaching and learning, yet so many faculty held tightly to the traditional face-to-face instructional environments. Yet faculty persistence won the day, reflecting the ability of higher education faculty to succeed through the swerving road of the unknown, the tightrope that they walked dangling daringly over the online chasm of understanding. This chapter focuses on the initial foray into the principles of instruction, followed by an understanding of the differentiation between optics and outcomes, developing strategic priorities, an understanding of nuanced teaching and learning, and the gratitude and understanding conceived through critically reflective pedagogy and journaling.