With the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, school buildings across the globe closed, leading educators, students and families to transition rapidly to online education. It is clear that schools will in the future continue to employ online learning, even as students and educators return to school buildings. While the education community has over a number of years generated a range of practical tips and guidance about online education—especially since the onset of COVID-19—many are not supported by research (DiPietro et al., 2010) and neglect international school settings (Barbour, 2014). This study investigates the experiences of sixty-one K-12 international educators via nineteen focus groups, contributing to the literature base on pedagogical, leadership and practical strategies needed to support effective online learning. Four lessons learned emerged from the data: technological challenges are exacerbated during a crisis; educators adapted to revise pedagogical strategies when under pressure; student and parent experiences were inconsistent and complex; and school leaders play an important role during a transition to online education. Although COVID-19 posed challenges, educators are resilient, adaptable, and deeply committed to student learning. School leaders now have an opportunity to reconstruct a model of education which offers students the best of face-to-face learning augmented by the most effective use of virtual technologies. This is more than planning for potential crises; this is reimagining the future of education.
The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has affected over one hundred million people worldwide and has resulted in over two million deaths. In addition to the toll that coronavirus takes on the health of humans infected with the virus and the potential long term effects of infection, the repercussions of the pandemic on the economy as well as on the healthcare system have been enormous. The global supply of equipment necessary for dealing with the pandemic experienced extreme stress as healthcare systems around the world attempted to acquire personal protective equipment for their workers and medical devices for treating COVID-19. This review describes how 3D printing is currently being used in life saving surgeries such as heart and lung surgery and how 3D printing can address some of the worldwide shortage of personal protective equipment, by examining recent trends of the use of 3D printing and how these technologies can be applied during and after the pandemic. We review the use of 3D printed models for treating the long term effects of COVID-19. We then focus on methods for generating face shields and different types of respirators. We conclude with areas for future investigation and application of 3D printing technology.
The closure of school buildings due to COVID-19 and the resulting rapid transition to online education dramatically altered the lives of educators, students and parents. While previous literature demonstrates the vital role of parents in effective online education (Hattie, 2020; Liu et al, 2010), pre-pandemic literature focuses on parents and students who have opted in to online education. As such, the outbreak of COVID-19 has presented new challenges for understanding the relationship between parents and their child/ren's online learning. Since the start of the pandemic, studies have emerged exploring parental experience adjusting to their child/ren's online remote learning (Bhamani et al, 2020; Brom et al, 2020; Dong et al, 2020; Garbe et al, 2020; Lee et al, 2021). However, less is known about the online learning experiences during COVID-19 of families with children enrolled within international schools. Accordingly, the present study draws upon insights from 44 parents of children attending international schools who took part in 22 focus groups, across three countries and in three languages. The study investigates the parental experience with online education and unpacks four themes that emerged from the data: challenges faced by parents, parental perception of their child/ren’s wellbeing, impressions of the learning quality and parental suggestions for consideration by school leadership. With these findings, school leaders have a unique opportunity to leverage lessons learned and support parental growth so that families, educators and students may all contribute to the promise of a brighter educational future.
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