Flexible and Adaptive Responsiveness – Disruptive Lessons from Higher Education in Refugee Contexts

The delivery of higher education in refugee contexts is no stranger to dealing with the unforeseen and responding to the needs of vulnerable learners. Being flexible and adaptable to a multitude of challenges and obstacles is a core component of any scaffolding that wishes to support refugee higher education programmes. InZone, an academic and humanitarian programme at the University of Geneva, has empirically developed a flexible and adaptable ‘learning ecosystem’ to scaffold its delivery of higher education programmes in Africa and the Middle East. This chapter explores how this responsive ecosystem has enabled top tier university programmes in some of the most challenging educational environments between 2017 and 2018. The functioning of the ecosystem is explored within the context of the lived reality of learners in the camps and course participation data is shared to evaluate the effectiveness of the learning ecosystem as a scaffold for enabling higher education in refugee contexts. Lessons learned point to recommendations for pedagogical innovations that could be employed to cope with pedagogical disruptions for the wider education world during testing times such as Covid19.

Virtual Academic Advising in Challenging Times

With the rapid shift to remote learning because of the pandemic, the academic advisors of colleges and universities had to adapt and change some of the ways they were advising the traditional higher education students. In this new normal, where social distance needs to be present and non-traditional education takes precedence in the learning environment, academic advisors had to rapidly adjust and use different technology tools of virtual advising. Over the past few years, colleges and universities that offer distance education programs have been struggling in engaging and retaining their non-traditional online learners. However, with the pandemic, these institutions may encounter the challenge of not only retaining the non-traditional students but also, the new distance learners. Therefore, academic advisors will need to use creative ways of providing advising services in this new learning environment. Many studies have demonstrated that virtual advising has been helpful to aid the distance education students. Virtual advising uses different technology applications and platforms. Using it correctly can help students and advisors with the registration cycles and with any other concerns the students may have. In this chapter, the author explains academic advising and the role of an advisor, the definition of virtual advising, the importance of combining the different approaches of academic advising into virtual advising, and the different technology tools that can assist academic advisors when doing their job of supporting the students in the new learning environment.

The Surge of e-learning during The 2020 Covid-19 Crisis: Threat or Promise? An Exploration and Conversation with a Professional in Education

The obligation for students to stay at home and take distance education due to the quarantine has turned virtual learning or e-learning into the most promising tool for safe teaching. Distance education appears to be the answer for the democratization of higher education in Latin America to eradicate poverty and inequality in work and living opportunities, still has to be accomplished. The Covid-19 crisis has forced the world education system to embrace e-learning without be prepared but does this mean a threat or as promise? In this article we explore the question at a point when the pandemic is still raging and definite answers are not yet available, firstly be presenting a framework based on previous research on e-learning in Latin-America, followed by a conversation with an e-learning professional engaged in Africa.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the International Education System: Disruptions in Low-income Countries

Africa as a continent has had challenges in its social, economic and political setup. COVID -19 pandemic amplified some of the issues the continent is struggling to contain at various levels to ensure sustainability. In terms of Education, the continent is yet to come to terms in realizing universal literacy, career related skills development for 21st century, quality education, infrastructure among others. Achieving 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is still a pipe dream. This chapter addresses issues that warrant discussion and raise concerns in education circles in developing continents. The disruptions that affected and impacted on the education sector during the corona pandemic from various standpoints need to be debated and addressed. The chapter will look at issues that impacted on education and how institutional mechanisms were put in place to ensure continuity in education upon World Health organization declaration of COVID -19 as a pandemic. Terms and concepts like online learning, Remote learning ,home schooling, distance learning and others which were not considered as crucial in education became the ‘new normal ‘This study highlights responses at various levels of education and in various geographical settings as to how various governments handled the pandemic. The chapter takes a look of the benefits of using technology during crisis and the value of innovation in continued learning. The role of technology in education and also how it changed and challenged the learning landscape is also highlighted. It also explores instances of equity, unpreparedness and access to quality education at all levels in education.

Indian Education System In Fight Against Covid 19 Pandemic

The Coronavirus pandemic and thus the following lockdown has forced schools and colleges across India to temporarily shut and this unprecedented move had created a huge gap within the education bodies despite the central and the government doing their best to support e-learning and online education. Globally, the Indian Education sector is amongst the most important, with an in-depth network of quite 1.4 million schools and 993 Universities, 39931 Colleges, and 10725 Stand-Alone Institutions listed on the AISHE web portal. Because the Indian education system was mostly supported by the offline system and classes. Most of the first, and secondary schooling sectors were all supported offline education system has got to opt the web classes for empowering the education, and for the advantages of the scholars. Many faculties within the country have switched to online classes thanks to the lockdown, but one in four students is unable to connect because they don’t have a laptop, desktop, or tablet, according to a survey by economic times.

The eLearning, the Brave New World of Higher Education

The fact, the COVID-19 Pandemic has forced the education to change rapidly and rely heavily on digital space, what makes it unavoidable to elaborate and know good teaching-learning practices, successfully applicable educational methods, and teaching strategies, innovative educational- technology tools. This chapter will present an e-educational methodology that has given a great answer for COVID-19. The chapter presents the technological solutions that are used to prepare eBooks, like textbooks and interactive set of examples books. It presents s an accounting lesson in a virtual classroom pointing out the operation of the classroom and its role in education, it invites the reader to take part in the lesson to experience the mood of the virtual classroom. The goal of the chapter to guide the reader into the world of e-learning, to appreciate its importance, and added value in the palette of the education.

Building Post-COVID Response Expertise to Transform Education Systems

The impact of COVID19 has brought a growing sense of chaos in the education systems and has severely disrupted academic progress across the globe by forcing education institutions to adopt a rapid re-design of teaching and learning systems. Among the many COVID-inspired challenges that faced education institutions was how to ensure survival, preparedness and growth after the pandemic. However, the same challenges have presented humanity with many opportunities to re-think and re-engineer a new way of doing business, a successful future is mostly held on the level of preparedness amongst education institutions to manage the future crises in the best way possible. There has never been a greater need and opportunity than this moment for the education sector to work much closer together to produce a collective strategy and plan that will redefine the future outlook of the broader education sector. It must be a plan that must proactively tackle possible challenges and risks and guide the education institutions into how to harness and apply the opportunities presented by covid 19. This chapter introduces the theory of chaos as a means of adapting to any crisis disturbances as it offers practical reflections through a philosophical window that goes from identifying patterns in crisis to creating new forms of creating order. The purpose of this chapter is to clarify a link between reflective practices and discussion case research on the idea around the suggested Adaptative Reflective Cycle (ARC) as a pandemic response model.

COVID – 19: Basis for United Future Global Response to a Pandemic

This chapter focuses on the link between humans – animal interaction and emergence of global pandemics. Influenza virus to which humans have no immunity, has potential to cause a pandemic when it acquires the ability to cause sustained human to human transmission which lead to community wide outbreaks. Transmissibility and severity are the two most critical factors that determine the effect of an epidemic. In the history of pandemics, neither the 2009 pandemic influenza A(H1N1) virus ([H1N1]pdm09) pandemic or the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS – COV) or the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS – CoV) epidemics, had the combination of both high transmissibility and severity, like COVID – 19, hence it has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). It is clear COVID – 19 pandemic is an unprecedented danger which does not differentiate on any basis be it borders, ethnicities, disability status, age or gender. This justifies a united global approach to similar future pandemic outbreak. The role of education in preventing or mitigating future pandemics globally is discussed. Finally, the new normal based on previous pandemics, including the current COVID – 19 is analysed, with recommendations subsequently stated.

Supporting Learning through Learning Management Systems in an ODL Environment amid Covid-19: Technology Accessibility and Student Success

Although prior research looked into the effects of LMSs upon student success, little is known on the effects of LMSs on student success, particularly during the current Covid-19 pandemic. Informed by technology acceptance model (TAM), this study explores the linkage between the geographic setting and the accessibility of NTs, and examines effects of LMSs upon student academic success in ODL in the context of Covid-19. The purpose of this chapter is to indicate how teaching and learning pedagogies is impacted by the novel coronavirus within the global open and distance learning education system and to suggest possible mechanisms to support students through learning management systems in order to reduce student attritions and to accelerate student success rate. I used a mixed-methods methodological lens, blending the self-administered questionnaires for 177 students with unstructured in-depth interviews with 2 regional directors, and 4 learning and facilitation managers during data collection. I analysed data descriptively and thematically, unveiling, from all cohorts of participants that the greater proportion of students are from remote rural areas with a considerable limited access to technologies, which ultimately adversely influences upon their usage and academic achievements. However, its continued use was valued salient with a potential to improve students’ academic performance and success. I conclude that inaccessibility to new technologies for teaching and learning has a bearing on students’ success. I propose that ODL institutions should support students by increasing accessibility of technologies through the provision of gadgets and data as well as establishing learning support centres and encourage students to use them in learning.

The Online Pandemic in Design Courses: Design Higher Education in Digital Isolation

esign education is at the crossroads of re-defining itself in the midst of the COVID pandemic. Design educators are now part of a global movement to work in isolation through web-based communication and collaboration tools, which are also at the heart of a decentralised workforce encountered in the design profession. With its social isolation requirements, many universities have closed down their physical classes and lecture halls and have required educators to abruptly transition their courses to an online delivery. Although this transition is not universally endorsed, it has forced the hand of design educators who have been reluctant to jump into the online world with both feet. As the literature reveals, many blended learning solutions have been trialled but few design educators have made online teaching and learning an ongoing building block of their design courses. This chapter examines the outcomes of this foundational shift from face-to-face design studio teaching to online by surveying design students and educators at an Australian university. The results are surprisingly optimistic but there are challenges that need to be addressed by institutions to make this transition work in the post-pandemic world. The central research question is: Will design educators who are now working in an online environment go back to the physical classroom and lecture halls once the pandemic restrictions ease? Or is online design education now a central part of the design curriculum?