Managing Stress and its Consequences during Covid-19, the College of Technological Studies, Kuwait

The unprecedented outbreak of Covid-19 and the suspension of classes while continuing teaching created disruption and a situation that added considerable stress not only to the management of technical and vocational institutions but also to teachers, trainers and students and their ability to cope with the situation. The shift to online teaching platforms rather than face-to-face learning caused emotional and physical consequences that affect the ability of teachers and trainers to achieve course objectives. This paper identifies and examines the emotional and physical consequences resulting from the use of online teaching platforms on teachers, trainers and students, in addition to examining the quality of online teaching platforms in achieving course objectives. The research involves designing, testing, and distributing questionnaires to a sample of teachers, trainers, and students as well as meeting with the Dean of the College of Technological Studies. The findings of this research revealed that teachers and trainers are more vulnerable to stress, and this can have a significant effect on teachers and trainers psychological and physical health and triggers emotional and physical consequences. In respect to students' perception towards the effectiveness of applying online teaching platforms, the majority of students were disagreed that online teaching platforms helped in gaining the required skills, understanding cases studies and understanding the course topics. Thus, the management of the College of Technological Studies must ensure that teachers and trainers are well equipped with the required knowledge, skills and attitudes to overcome and/or reduce the consequences resulting from the use of online teaching platforms. Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s).

A cross sectional study on the online teaching strategies of gross anatomy and histology during the COVID-19 pandemic periods

The subsequent implementation of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic has forced universities to keep the students away from the institutions. The aim of the study was to conduct a survey through medical colleges among anatomy teachers along with an exploration of optimization of the transitions which can assist to improve the quality of online teaching. The objectives were to identify the virtual learning interventions implemented by different medical colleges in India during Covid-19 pandemic periods, and to identify suitable technological intervention for teaching anatomy from the educator's point of view. A cross sectional study was conducted by convenience sampling method. A differential rating scale questionnaire study was conducted. A hundred participants from the department of anatomy of 100 medical colleges with a minimum of 3 years of experience in teaching in the field were the samples. Faculty other than anatomy department of medical colleges was excluded. Consents were taken from each participant and participant information was shared by email. The teachers were from both from Government and from Private Institutions. For most teachers, the biggest difficulty in implementing online teaching during the initial year of online teaching at 2020 was the unstable online teaching environments, platforms and tools (47%), followed by their unfamiliarity with online teaching techniques, platforms and tools (26%). Further, 17% had problems due to insufficient training and management of online teaching from college. This study assists to improve the design and quality of online teaching by suggesting for the change in infrastructure by arranging online portal handson coaching for rendering online education. Copyright © 2022 Sociedad Anatomica Espanola. All rights reserved.

Lessons Learned During a Global Pandemic: Teaching Takeaways

Over the past year, the global pandemic caused by Covid-19 challenged educators from around the world to almost instantaneously become experts in online teaching and learning. While these challenges were often intense, frustrating, and very time-consuming, faculty from institutions of higher learning stepped up to the plate. As all courses ranging from A-Z across all levels of undergraduate and graduate studies went online and faculty scrambled to revise syllabi and reframe learning outcomes, many lessons were learned. As we prepare to potentially resume face-to-face teaching very soon, it may be prudent to pause and ask ourselves the following question: What has worked or is working in the online teaching and learning environment? The primary goal of this paper is to shed some light on the lessons that we learned – both the good and the bad. A secondary goal is to take the positive experiences and reshape them into longer-term teaching takeaways. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.