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Showing posts from March, 2020

Florida Career College to Close

Florida Career College to Close Doug Lederman Fri, 01/26/2024 - 03:00 AM Byline(s) Doug Lederman from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/avZRfLi

Virtual Student Life

Blog:  Confessions of a Community College Dean We’ve spent so much time and energy focusing on moving the curricular part of college online that I haven’t seen much discussion of the extracurricular part. Have you seen a college do a particularly good job of moving student life and activities online? Admittedly, it’s early days. And I honestly don’t know how much student demand there is or would be, given how many pins many people are juggling. But there have to be some students who would benefit from connecting with other students, even if only to slake the boredom of isolation. Given the abrupt midsemester switch to off-campus work, plenty of activities got interrupted. Most sports can’t be played from home, for instance. Esports sometimes can, but I’m told that the more sophisticated and competitive ones require levels of hardware (and low levels of latency) unlikely to be available to many from home. Soccer, not at all. Some student clubs are probably chugging along ni

Can hands-on career and tech programs go online during school shutdowns?

Putting lectures online is doable, but that’s not necessarily true of coursework in fields like welding. Credit: Oliver Parini for The Hechinger Report In fields like history, literature and French, transitioning to online learning — as many colleges have done to fight the spread of the coronavirus — might sound challenging but doable. In some career and technical programs, it’s a different story. This story also appeared in PBS Newshour At Peninsula College, in Washington State, Eoin Doherty, who coordinates the school’s welding program, is scrambling to devise a plan for offering classes amid new restrictions resulting from the virus. In welding labs, an instructor demonstrates a technique to students on a machine, sends them off to practice on their own and walks around to check their work. That simply can’t be done online, he said. For now, the campus is closed, and the school is on spring break. If they’re allowed to offer labs in person when classes restart on April

‘It feels a little hopeless’: Parents of kids with disabilities worry coronavirus quarantine will mean regression

JoAnna Van Brusselen, pictured with her daughter Iolani, worries the 11-year-old will regress during this period when school is shut. Credit: Photo: JoAnna Van Brusselen It was a Monday morning at breakfast, 10 days into the quarantine, that JoAnna Van Brusselen first noticed the claw. This story also appeared in NBC News Her oldest daughter, Iolani Azul, 11, was sitting at the kitchen table in their house in San Francisco, her right hand curled up against her stomach. It reminded Van Brusselen of how her daughter had carried herself when she was an infant, before years of schooling, occupational therapy and guidance from teachers helped her overcome some physical and cognitive challenges resulting from a stroke in utero. “I never show her any stress, because I don’t want that to seep into her, so I just said, ‘Hey, babe, don’t forget your right hand also needs to stretch,’” Van Brusselen recalled. But inside she was reeling. Iolani “was never supposed to walk or talk a

Colleges start new academic programs

Carthage College is starting a program for those who have earned an associate degree in nursing to earn a B.S. in nursing. Cedarville University is starting a major in cyberoperations. Finlandia University is starting a bachelor of science in biology. Hofstra University, with Northwell Health, is starting a bachelor's degree in nursing. Keiser University is starting a Ph.D. program in criminal justice and criminology. Kennesaw State University is starting a bachelor of business administration in hospitality management. Sacred Heart University is starting a certificate in brewing science. Southern Connecticut State University is starting a bachelor's degree in data science. Trine University is starting a bachelor of science in actuarial science. University of Maryland at College Park is starting a major in religions of the ancient Middle East. University of Rhode Island is starting an undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary neuroscience. Teachin

Student parents are hit doubly hard by coronavirus

This has been a nerve-racking time for Chelsea Callender. The 22-year-old junior at Bowie State University in Maryland had to switch her 3-year-old daughter from a childcare center to an in-home daycare last week, after the childcare center closed down due to concerns around the coronavirus. She was in the process of moving from one job to another when her old job shut down and left her without her last week of pay. The job she was planning to move to -- teaching children how to swim -- is also now shut down due to the coronavirus. She's now relying on a second, part-time job teaching children about art. Her job hasn't yet been shut down but is giving out fewer hours because people are canceling appointments. Meanwhile, Callender had been planning to take classes in the summer after taking this semester off to work through financial aid issues and work extra hours. She needs to turn in a financial aid appeal in May and doesn't know whether someone will be there to app

Faculty discuss their quick transition to online instruction

The University of Washington was the first major U.S. college or university to announce, amid rising concerns about the coronavirus's spread, that it would move instruction online. At that point Seattle was the epicenter of the disease in the United States. The UW campuses were kept open for students who had nowhere else to go, but many chose to leave. Preliminary data from the university showed occupancy on campus for this spring is about 22 to 24 percent of what it was in the fall. Though the university is enrolling more registered students this spring than last, it saw an increased number of student withdrawals after March 18, when it announced the move to remote instruction for the full spring quarter. From that day to March 29, there were 225 withdrawals, compared to 153 in the same period last year. We checked in with faculty members at the university to ask how the transition was going for them and their students. Successful, but Stressful Joseph Janes, a professor i

Roundup: FBI recommendations, funding simulation and a dribbling turtle

It's week 1,000 of the quarantine, which looks like it could stretch to June (aka 10 years from now). We've got a pandemic relief package, overflowing morgues in New York City, people stuck abroad and a major pharmaceutical company working on a vaccine for COVID-19. We need some palate cleansers. Here is a turtle playing basketball for all the disappointed March Madness fans. (Personally, I think this is better.) 5 days out of his winter hibernation & Hurricane is getting into his garden lockdown football exercise this morning...he’ll be posting his boxercise routine & tomorrow! #teacher5aday #exercise #notice pic.twitter.com/xUMGL6h5ya — Patrick Ottley-O'Connor (@ottleyoconnor) March 26, 2020 The Seattle Times did a roundup of raves (minus the rants) for people helping people during the coronavirus pandemic. Tired of reading coronavirus news? Same. Here's a nice, long break from High Country News about indigenous land and land-grant universit

Mental health support systems for coping with pandemic

As college students and faculty members face an onslaught of stressors related to the disruptions in their lives caused by the coronavirus pandemic, they are relying on each other for connection and coping strategies to help ease the weight of the public health crisis on their mental health. While administrators and other employees are undoubtedly also affected by the dramatic departure of people from college and university campuses across the country, the upheaval has been most felt by students and faculty members who interacted more frequently and consistently -- and had more symbiotic relationships -- than others on campus. Many students and faculty now find themselves functioning in unfamiliar terrain -- and struggling emotionally. Colleges and universities are doing what they can to quickly shift counseling services for students from in-person therapy to telephone or video sessions. The technology is considered an effective replacement -- at least for now -- for the human co

Being honest with students can help prevent abrupt college closures, report says

When Mount Ida College -- a small, private college just outside Boston -- announced in 2018 that it would close , students were left scrambling. The teach-out plans put in place did not cover all programs. Many students in good standing who were automatically admitted to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth couldn’t make the 70-plus-mile drive to campus each day. Students with loans received little information about discharges and were only directed to their loan servicer. A new report from the left-leaning think tank New America examines what happened at Mount Ida and 11 other colleges that recently closed. The report, “ Anticipating and Managing Precipitous College Closures ,” presents ways to reduce the number of colleges that shutter without warning. Between the 2008-09 and 2016-17 academic years, more than 300 colleges in the United States shut their doors, according to the report. Some closures are inevitable, the report assumes, and as the new coronavirus continue

Public Hospitals and U.S. Health Care

Public hospitals used to be a safety net for health care. In today's Academic Minute, Pennsylvania State University 's Simon Haeder details why this changed. Haeder is an assistant professor of public policy at Penn State. A transcript of this podcast can be found here . Section:  Academic Minute File:  03-31-20 Penn State - Public Hospitals and the Development of the U.S. Health Care System.mp3 Event's date:  Monday, March 30, 2020 - 7:00pm School:  Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus Insider only:  from Inside Higher Ed https://ift.tt/2X2PlJU