Challenges and Opportunities for Teaching Students with Disabilities During the COVID-19 Pandemic

According to UNESCO (2020), school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have affected over 1.5 billion students and families. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented multiple challenges for teaching students with disabilities in an online instructional environment, but there are also opportunities for collaboration, training, and communication for special educators to meet the needs of their students.

Lessons from Yalta: Imperatives for Post-Covid 19 Higher Education

The goal of this essay is to provide Higher Education institutions with suggestions for maintaining both economic viability and organizational credibility in a Post-Covid 19 environment. Three practical, yet important, objectives for both colleges and universities are identified in light of the pandemic and its aftermath. In particular, the essay targets administrative imperatives and stakeholder-oriented considerations for implementation.

Invite Students to Skip the Unemployment Line: How Health Information Management Education Programs Can Increase Employability with Support from HIM Stakeholders

Students graduate from accredited programs every year with skills and competencies required by their profession of choice. However, employability remains an issue after graduation. Industry leaders and educators have a statistically significant difference in graduate preparedness for the workforce. When attempting to find a position in their career, graduates are told that without experience, they cannot secure a job. How does one attain the experience desired by employers? This paper posits that university connections and partnerships will assist graduates in securing positions and other required skills after graduation. The purpose of this paper is to extend the work started by Jackson, Lower, and Rudman, using an evidence-based management approach, to synthesize frameworks that will support allied health education programs with bridging the gap between curriculum, internships, practicums, and graduate employability. Also discussed will be the importance of considering both hard and soft skills in graduate employability.

Teaching and Learning for this Moment: How a Trauma Informed Lens Can Guide Our Praxis

In this time of COVID-19, continued and relentless violence against BIPOC, organized resistance by many young people, and violent institutionalized attempts to suppress resistance, demonstrations and social change movements, what should educators be thinking about as we return to our college classrooms? In this short piece, we share our thinking and experience about our students’ psycho-social needs and our belief that faculty must be focused both on students’ and faculty’s socio-political context and students’ and faculty’s emotional wellbeing as we think about teaching and learning for this moment.

The Intersection of Faculty Success and Student Success

When institutions put student success at the forefront, what does this mean for faculty? While faculty may feel as if a focus on student success is in opposition to faculty success, the two are intertwined. An understanding of the relationship between faculty and student success can assuage faculty concern regarding competition for attention and resources when faculty success and student success are juxtaposed.

Moving Beyond the Statements: The Need for Action to Address Structural Racism at Predominantly White Institutions

Higher education may once again be at a crossroad with the racial climate in the United States and what that means for college campuses. Consequently, institutions of higher education must commit to ensuring a supportive organizational structure for the social and psychosocial well-being of Black students and guaranteeing support resources for the psychological well-being of Black students. Such efforts require significant and enduring structural changes within institutions of higher education that should be ongoing and consistent.

COVID-19 Crisis and Faculty Members in Higher Education: From Emergency Remote Teaching to Better Teaching through Reflection

This short essay highlights how the COVID-19 crisis forced many faculty members in the higher education setting to abruptly transition from face-to-face and hybrid instruction to remote teaching. We highlight how emergency remote teaching can lead to overall improved instruction (regardless of future course modality) and better preparedness (for future crises) through an asserted effort to reflect on the experience as a whole.

Foreign-born Faculty’s Perceptions and Experiences in a Turbulent Sociopolitical Climate

This study investigated the experiences of five foreign-born faculty in the US after the 2016 election. Through a written questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, the participants shared their recollections of several critical incidents, their reactions to Trumpism, and their perceptions of support from their institutions. The analysis of the critical incidents revealed that while the participants experienced varying degrees of collegial support and sense of isolation, for some, their concern with Trumpism impacted their intent to stay at their institution and in the US. The article concludes with recommendations to increase diversity in faculty body, training US-born faculty about diversity and inclusivity, and increasing systems of support for foreign-born faculty in order to increase the recruitment and retention of foreign-born faculty.

Computer Supported Collaborative Learning for Developing Higher Order Thinking Skill in ELT

The practice of integrating pedagogical approaches using multimedia technologies has become one of the common interests in the field of English language teaching (ELT) in recent years. This research study attempts at studying the characteristics of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) tasks used for developing students' cognitive skills within the CSCL approach in the context of ELT in higher secondary school education in Nepal. Non-participant observation of the CSCL tasks assigned to the students in the English class in two different schools, and semi-structured interviews with the students were used as the research tools. It was found that the CSCL tasks were useful for enhancing some cognitive skills of the students, though many of the CSCL tasks assigned gave more attention to enhance the students' lower order thinking skills rather than their higher order thinking skills.

Traumatic Skepticism of COVID 19

The impact of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) is not just limited to fatalities around the world in the present times. The psychosocial impact is catastrophic and will last much longer than ever anticipated. The stigma attached to the fear of an isolated and lonely death, the trauma of not being close to your loved ones, the societal economic derailment, the loss of campus experiences by freshmen at any level across the globe, and above all the mass hysteria of staying caged behind closed doors until all is well demands the restructuring of both the physical and psychological aspects of the society. Even the stress and pressure on the medics and scientists across the globe is immense. The lurking fear of uncertainty, the pain of losing jobs, livelihood, businesses, and homes along with exposure to contradicting information has taken its toll on people’s peace of mind. The masses are struggling to adapt to the new world in the hope that everything will go back to the usual ‘normal’ soon. Only long-lasting and effective measures for physical and mental well-being, astute direction, and the planned steps can help heal the trauma of skeptical life ahead.