Delta-8-THC: Delta-9-THC’s nicer younger sibling?

Background Products containing delta-8-THC became widely available in most of the USA following the 2018 Farm Bill and by late 2020 were core products of hemp processing companies, especially where delta-9-THC use remained illegal or required medical authorization. Research on experiences with delta-8-THC is scarce, some state governments have prohibited it because of this lack of knowledge. Objective We conducted an exploratory study addressing a broad range of issues regarding delta-8-THC to inform policy discussions and provide directions for future systematic research. Methods We developed an online survey for delta-8-THC consumers, including qualities of delta-8-THC experiences, comparisons with delta-9-THC, and open-ended feedback. The survey included quantitative and qualitative aspects to provide a rich description and content for future hypothesis testing. Invitations to participate were distributed by a manufacturer of delta-8-THC products via social media accounts, email contact list, and the Delta8 Reddit.com discussion board. Participants (N = 521) mostly identified as White/European American (90%) and male (57%). Pairwise t tests compared delta-8-THC effect rating items; one-sample t tests examined responses to delta-9-THC comparison items. Results Most delta-8-THC users experienced a lot or a great deal of relaxation (71%); euphoria (68%) and pain relief (55%); a moderate amount or a lot of cognitive distortions such as difficulty concentrating (81%), difficulties with short-term memory (80%), and alerted sense of time (74%); and did not experience anxiety (74%) or paranoia (83%). Participants generally compared delta-8-THC favorably with both delta-9-THC and pharmaceutical drugs, with most participants reporting substitution for delta-9-THC (57%) and pharmaceutical drugs (59%). Participant concerns regarding delta-8-THC were generally focused on continued legal access. Conclusions Delta-8-THC may provide much of the experiential benefits of delta-9-THC with lesser adverse effects. Future systematic research is needed to confirm participant reports, although these studies are hindered by the legal statuses of both delta-8-THC and delta-9-THC. Cross-sector collaborations among academics, government officials, and representatives from the cannabis industry may accelerate the generation of knowledge regarding delta-8-THC and other cannabinoids. A strength of this study is that it is the first large survey of delta-8 users, limitations include self-report data from a self-selected convenience sample.

The Augmentation of Digital Violence during COVID-19

The abrupt onset of the COVID -19 pandemic brought devastating consequences to society as we know it. Connected to the obvious medical, societal, and economic changes, the pandemic also ushered in a world of isolation. Within this world, both media and violence are connected to imposed quarantine and confinement. During the pandemic, many studies indicated the rise of gender-based violence. For example, Mittal and Singh (2020) study the rise of quarantine violence in India. Equally disturbing is the rise of gender-based violence in digital spaces. Anon-IB is an image-based discussion board where anonymous images are posted. However, the board has become a hotbed for revenge porn and incel activity. Dutch police shut the site down in April 2018 (Vaas, 2018), but during the pandemic Anon-IB was able to find loopholes to restart itself. Users can also post headshots of a woman on the site and then ask for “wins,” which translates into nude photos. Anon-IB is location-based, and users often ask for photos of women in the surrounding area. The site also reaches aninternational audience. One example is a past thread from The University of Georgia in Tbilisi, Georgia. This paper discusses the rise of extreme online violence and revenge porn during the pandemic through a discourse analysis of Anon-IB. A discussion of incel culture will also be discussed, using the work of O’Malley et al. (2020) and others as a framework to discuss the internet’s role in ideological extremism and violence.

Discussion Board Tool and Student Engagement in a Digital Learning Space

The purpose of this paper is to share the author’s online teaching experiences on increasing student engagement and learning experience in a digital teaching environment using the discussion board tool. This paper was written in the first person – that is, the author as I positioned myself within the study context. Blackboard was adopted as the learning management system at the author’s affiliated university for the digital teaching and learning delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic era. Discussion board is a communication tool contained within the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra that can be used to enhance learning and teaching. This paper is a reflective account of the author and students in three undergraduate (UG) teaching units during pandemic era. A combination of existing academic literature, online resources, online interviews via discussion board tool and personal experiences were employed to demonstrate and reflect my engagement with UG students in order to achieve specific learning outcomes. To achieve the purpose of my personal reflection reporting, this study asks one question from the participants: How would you describe your learning experience and engagement with your lecturer and fellow students using the discussion board tool for pre-tutorial and group assignment? This paper presents a context, reflection and case scenarios of three UG teaching units concerning fostering student engagement in digital learning environment through the discussion board tool. Findings indicate that there are three stages of student engagement using the discussion board tool namely: tutor-student engagement, student-student engagement, and student group-student group engagement. Discussion board tool encourages active learning experience. The implications of my reflective account shows that fostering student engagement in a digital learning environment through the discussion board is important for both tutors and students. It is recommended that more faculty members will explore learning and teaching resources available on discussion board tool in the ‘new normal’ era.

An Exploratory Examination of Student-Led, Asynchronous Collaborative Online Discussions in Fostering Higher-Order Cognitive Skills and Ethical Leadership Learning

Previous studies have contextualized student-led, asynchronous online discussions as collaborative learning experiences that positively impact students’ learning and foster higher order cognitive skills. From a leadership education perspective, student-led discussions have come to the fore as a helpful resource for deepening learning because of their focus on collaboration and shared leadership. While literature on student-led online discussions, leadership learning, and cognitive skill is plentiful, there is no single study that explores all these elements together or fully points to how practicing meaning-making in online, asynchronous leadership courses can inform larger cognitive processes. Thus, the purpose of this conceptual content analysis-based study was to examine 35 undergraduate students’ collaborative discussion board posts at the beginning, middle, and end of an online, asynchronous Ethics and Leadership class to assess not only if and to what extent students expressed cognitive skills, in general, but also if and to what extent they understood ethical leadership via these types of discussions. Further, from an exploratory lens, this study examined if there was a relationship between expression of higher order cognitive skills and more complex ethical leadership understanding. Results indicate that, while students achieved higher order cognitive skills and more holistic ethical leadership understanding overall, robustness of student engagement could be situational in nature and expressions of cognitive skills and ethical leadership understanding tapered as the course progressed. Additional findings and implications are discussed.

METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS OF LISTENING STRATEGIES AND PERCEPTION OF LISTENING SKILL DURING REMOTE LEARNING

The online classes associated with the Covid-19 pandemic have resulted in the magnitude of remote learning of ESL (English as a second language). Sustaining the quality of teaching and learning of listening skills has become more challenging for everyone. Listening is one of the fundamental skills to acquire knowledge in an academic setting. Every instructor and learner need to perceive that listening is not an innate skill, understand the processes involved in listening comprehension, and integrate strategies while listening. The present study explores Metacognitive Awareness of Listening Strategies (MALS) and students’ perceptions about learning listening skills during remote learning. The current study was conducted through a multimethod research design where both quantitative and qualitative data were involved. Two instruments were utilised, which are the Metacognitive Awareness of Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) and the online discussion board. The participants were chosen based on simple random sampling consisting of 51 pre-university students enrolled in the Science Foundation programme in the 2020/2021 session. The first part of the results depicted students had an average level of MALS with directed attention strategies as the factor with the highest average. The second part of the results reported that students who scored a higher average score of MALS tend to use problem-solving strategies. Lastly, the board postings were analysed thematically and categorised to three different themes which are challenges, strategies, and activities of learning skills. It is hoped that this study will shed light on empirical strategies and evidence of listening practices during online classes. Both teachers and learners may have clearer insights on how to manage listening comprehension effort and use learning inherent to tackle remote learning.

Engaging Millennial Students through Flipped Classroom: Perspectives from Faculty, Undergraduate Medical and Nursing Students

Background: The ‘flipped classroom’ is a teaching pedagogy where students are actively involved in the learning process. It reduces passivity, enables students to become active learners through reasoning and concept application, and facilitates student interaction with their peers and instructors. This instructional approach enhances retention and decreases distraction by engaging students.The purpose of this study was to train the faculty of the medical college and school of nursing in adapting flipped classrooms (FCR) as a strategy and to facilitate them in conducting sessions for their learners. Methods: This study was conducted from July 2019 to September 2020. Three training workshops were conducted for faculty participants. The workshop was designed in a flipped style format in which pre-reading material was shared in advance with the workshop participants. A discussion board was created on Pad-let to engage workshop participants prior to the face-to-face (F2F) session. Kahoot was used to assess prior knowledge at the beginning of the F2F session. A video on flipped classroom was uploaded along with a few questions in between to check their basic understanding of the topic. Workshops’ participants conducted sessions for medical and nursing students and participated in focus group discussions (FGD) to share their experiences. Students’ perspectives were also obtained after their FCR session through a structured questionnaire.Results: Both medical and nursing students found FCR format stimulating. A significantly higher proportion of medical students (73%) found the FCR more engaging and interesting than a traditional lecture as compared to nursing students (59%) (p= 0.009). Similarly, 73 % of medical students believed the learning objectives of both the non-face-to-face (NF2F) and face-to-face (F2F) sessions were shared with them as compared to the 62% of nursing students who believed the same (p=0.002). A significantly higher proportion of medical (76%) versus nursing (61%) students found the FCR format more useful for application of their theoretical knowledge into clinical practice (p=0.030).Conclusion: Students found the flipped classroom (FCR) more engaging and interesting in terms of applying theoretical knowledge into practice. It is recommended to conduct more FCR sessions for an interactive and student-centered learning experience.

Digitalization in Collaborative Framework : Maintain High Quality Drilling Performance in Mahakam's Complex Well Preparation

Mahakam is a mature gas and oil field that has been in operation since 1966, covering an area of approximately 1500 square kilometers. It is located in East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia and has 7 operating fields. Tunu, Tambora and Handil are fields within the swamp shallow water (Delta), whereas Bekapai, Peciko, Sisi Nubi and South Mahakam are offshore fields with water depths ranging from 45 to 80 meters. The diverse setting of environments requires different methods of site preparation, construction, drilling and logistic. The drilling industrialization necessitates agile and complex well preparation especially in the Deltaic environment, with around 70 wells drilled with three swamp barge rigs each year. In recent drilling development in both Tunu and Handil fields, more shallow wells were drilled. These wells were drilled in the swamp with heavy sedimentation and/or sand banks which necessitated a large amount of dredging and required months of preparation whereas the drilling operation took up to 3 days per wells. The entire well preparation process requires planning, monitoring, and the participation of many team in different entities. Each entity has its own version of well planning database, resulting in data disagreement and lack of data integrity. Thousands of emails are being send and meetings are being organized to guarantee that operations runs well. Due to lack of trustworthy data, personnel movement or team reorganization, it has become serious issues. In 2016, company decided to start the digitalization efforts, by approaching various service company who provides the well planning software. It needed customization to match the corporate needs. However since the digitalization has not yet commonly used by most company, it was then not user friendly, thus several individuals were hesitant to utilize it. An internal team created an application in early 2019. As the business requirement & working flowchart, the team decided to have a clean and mobile-ready yet less complicated form that also enables team collaboration during the design. This ensures that all users, employee from any generation (X, Y, and Z) able to use and enter valid information. Equipped with map visualization, the related entities will be able to have better quick analysis on the condition surrounding wellhead position. The application also implements an adjustable workflow system that able to follow the dynamic of organization structure, ensure each of well planning task is assigned to the correct team. Push notifications are also an important element in this application for keeping the entire team up to date. The application also featured a discussion board and file sharing function, allowing each team to exchange information or files. The manual email exchange has been minimized, and the meeting hour has been reduced significantly. The errors are simply identified and fixed in a single integrated database. The application is continuously improved from well planning only in its early stages into well design to accommodate the whole drilling industrialization process.