<p>Due to the coronavirus crisis, universities worldwide have faced sudden pressure to change from face-to-face delivery of courses to digitally enhanced teaching for distance learning. We present a small case study of 75 students from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics of the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece on their experiences of the transition from face-to-face to distance learning during this crisis. We used a questionnaire with closed-ended and open-ended questions to record the students’ “fresh” experience of their new educational reality. Students consider distance learning to be interesting, modern, adequate, and convenient, but not able to replace their experience of social interaction with fellow students and teachers. They continue to express worries about lessons, examinations, and laboratory work, which may be due to the specific and high demands of the biosciences. This crisis is an opportunity for universities to improve the use of digital tools for an enhanced learning and teaching experience. This should be supported by investment in digital infrastructure for improving distance learning in higher education.</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0622/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of social and economic life, including the educational sector. While each level of education faces its unique challenges, for the Higher Education the pandemic may act as the catalyst triggering a learning revolution. In the current study, which took place in April-May 2020, in the middle of lockdown in Greece, students from two regional Universities in Greece who participated pointed out that the Covid-19 pandemic disturbed their studies, even though their institutions managed to turn very quickly and successfully to distance learning. Despite the fact they are both old enough to handle the online work and technologically savvy enough to navigate new, digital tools and methods, a lot of anxiety, doubts and concerns arose. The main finding is that Greek students found it difficult to handle the lack of the everyday campus life and interaction with their fellow students and teachers, a lesson learnt for faculty to add pedagogically interactive tools, experiences, and ideas to stimulate students’ learning engagement.

This paper reports on a study exploring the in-service elementary school teachers satisfaction as far as the design and implementation of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), which took place during the second wave of pandemic COVID-19 and prepared in-service elementary school teachers how to teach biological concepts in Primary School with the utilization of digital educational content and Open Educational Recourses (OER). A total of 251 teachers enrolled in this MOOC of whom 142 completed the course and were asked to fill-in a questionnaire. The findings indicated that the majority of the participants were satisfied both with the specific learning experience and the participation in a learning community in which interaction, support and active participation were developed. Recommendations are made for future research.

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Due to the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the institutions of higher education had to transform their educational function from face-to-face to e-learning. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of e-learning and the consequent disruption of the traditional educational function in higher education in Greece with special reference to the views of undergraduates compared to those of their peers collected via the same method and tool one year earlier in two regional Greek Universities, the University of Patras and the Democritus University of Thrace. The present research was conducted in May 2021 in order to explore students’ views and feelings one year after the sudden and total transition to online teaching during the pandemic. The results suggest that students seem to prefer face-to-face courses, but they provide interesting aspects regarding e-teaching and learning -thus valuable guidelines for higher educational institutions in developing didactic approaches, to motivate students on their academic pathway, emphasizing the necessity of University Pedagogy.

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COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of social and economic life, including the educational sector. While each level of education faces its unique challenges, for the Higher Education the pandemic may act as the catalyst triggering a learning revolution. In the current study, which took place in April-May 2020, in the middle of lockdown in Greece, students from two regional Universities in Greece who participated pointed out that the Covid-19 pandemic disturbed their studies, even though their institutions managed to turn very quickly and successfully to distance learning. Despite the fact they are both old enough to handle the online work and technologically savvy enough to navigate new, digital tools and methods, a lot of anxiety, doubts and concerns arose. The main finding is that Greek students found it difficult to handle the lack of the everyday campus life and interaction with their fellow students and teachers, a lesson learnt for faculty to add pedagogically interactive tools, experiences, and ideas to stimulate students‟ learning engagement.

Laboratory training is the cornerstone of science education in higher education. However, in several cases hands-on experimental procedures are not possible, and therefore technology provide alternative educational methods. One of the rapidly evolving technologies, namely Virtual Reality (VR) can offer multiple benefits in laboratory training through the development of simulations and virtual laboratories that support, facilitate, and promote an effective their learning experience. We present an empirical research carried out at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics of the Democritus University of Thrace during the winter semester of the academic year 2020-2021. 51 undergraduate students carried out a Virtual Reality activity aiming to train them to the use of a Class II Biosafety Cabinet (BSC) in an immersive virtual environment. Our results show that VR approach was highly and enthusiastically accepted by the students; they reported that they had an authentic learning experience which enabled them to better achieve the learning objectives. However, in some cases symptoms like dizziness and blurry image were reported most likely due to equipment, showing that improvement of the equipment used in VR is needed. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/747/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>