In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic mandated closures of thousands of schools across the United States. Students dependent upon the support, guidance, and community of their schools became disconnected from these resources while encountering the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. This case study represents a time capsule of the school community of one Los Angeles County public middle school from March 16 to May 28, 2020. Semi-structured interviews of school staff and parents grounded the study’s analysis. Public documents and participant researcher protocol responses collaborated the participants’ narratives. Results provide a snapshot of the school community before emergency mandated COVID-19 closure, participants’ recollections of the school community during the closure, and their reflections and reactions to the closures. Data analysis utilized a conceptual framework developed to capture e-school community access and engagement. Outcomes from this study illustrate the need for additional supports for student mental health, investment in universal access to reliable internet service, and the importance of physical school outreach during times of crisis.

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In educational institutions, the use of technology has been used to compliment face to face learning or used alone to deliver the educational needs and learning process for distance education. Where used alone, it is said to be online learning and where it has complimented traditional learning it can be said to be hybrid or blended learning. Before the pandemic, the question of choice or the voluntary use of these technology was there, and the student determined what was best suited for their educational and learning needs. This study looks at the how the students related with technology during the pandemic. It looks at constructs like performance expectancy, fit for use, effort expectancy, fit for task and ends with investigating the student’s perception on intention for future use. Using a mixed approach, the perception of students was sampled. First by using a quantitative method, hinged on the novelty of the disruption to reveal areas that could be of potential interest and then a qualitative method followed. The purpose of using a mixed method approach was for completeness and complimentary reasons. The results of the qualitative data and quantitative data were bridged to form meta-inferences, and these were used to answer the research questions and discuss the findings. The study revealed that technology was easy to use without little or no technical issues, it was fit for the task at hand, it aided the students to achieve their academic goals and needs, but intention to retain the use of technology for future academic activities was not welcomed. This was due to social factors like lack of motivation, feeling of isolation, lack of social interaction been missing but available in traditional classes. these are critical factors that affect the retention of technology for future use. In the presence of choice, they would rather go back to the traditional mode. They integration of technology with traditional mode of learning, i.e., blended mode of learning was highly welcomed.

This essay has examined the transition from physical pastoral care conversations to digitalized ones and the experience of it in the workplace. The thesis for this essay is the following; how has the pastoral care conversations continued during the pandemic, and what advantages and disadvantages has the informants experienced in the transition from physical pastoral care conversations to digitalized meetings? The study has been conducted through qualitative semi-structured interviews with a selection of priests and deacons within the Church of Sweden. The main questions that have been asked are: 1. How has the pastoral care meetings practically taken place during the pandemic? 2. What thoughts and experiences has the informants had to the transition from physical to digitized pastoral care meetings? 3. What advantages and disadvantages has this in turn meant for the work with pastoral care? Each interview has been transcribed and then analyzed through a so-called content analysis. This type of analysis has been helpful in being able to pick out relevant themes from the material that have been keys within the interviews. From the analysis, there was four themes that stood out, which were: openness, access, problematics and challenge. The first two categories deal with the informants' experience of the transition as an advantage, while the two latter one’s points to disadvantages that arises with the digitalized transition in their work. The analysis from the interviews showed that one does not exclude the other, that the transition is not just a disadvantage or the other way around, but rather that the two are connected. Instead, both of them help the congregations to create new ways to continue being a church for the community. Reaching out and responding to peoples need to converse and to feel connected even though they have been isolated. The conclusion shows that the advantages and disadvantages have helped bringing the Church to the people when physical meetings are limited or cut off completely due to restrictions within the society. The analysis has also shown the difficulties that these informants have battled with and how they have handled them.

This study aims to describe President Donald J. Trump’s emergency communication onTwitter in relation to two cases of emergency: The Corona pandemic and the alleged voterfraud in the presidential election of 2020. By applying two different sets of theoreticalperspectives, one ideological and one rationalistic, to the president’s emergencycommunication, the study also aims to find ways to understand what kind of motivation laysbehind the president’s communication. The studies research questions are as follows: 1. Howdoes President Trump communicate on Twitter in relation to the two cases of emergency? 2.How can Trump’s emergency communication be understood from an ideological perspective?3. How can Trump’s emergency communication be understood from a rationalisticperspective?The study is based on an abductive approach but grounded in Rubenstein’s (2015) definitionof the emergency claim and emergency politics. A qualitative content analysis was applied tothe president’s Twitter communication in relation to the two cases of emergency. 10% of thetweets that related to four search terms (covid, coronavirus, voter fraud and election) wasanalyzed to search for patterns of meaning in relationship to the two theoretical perspectives.The study finds that President Trump’s emergency communication can be described asvarying between the cases but ultimately be seen as a consequence of the president’s relationto the emergency. By applying the two theoretical perspectives on the two cases the study alsofinds that the best way to understand President Trump’s emergency communication is asmotivated by rationalism but grounded in arguments that refer to the American version of theconservative ideology.

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This study examined the lived experiences of teachers and administrators as reflected in their responses regarding instructional materials, instructional delivery, social and emotional well-being of students, and access to critical school services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants shared their experiences about how the instructional materials and delivery modes were selected as well as the guidance and support given by school administrators. Major challenges and concerns along with promising practices related to student engagement, social and emotional well-being of students, and access to critical school services were identified.

The present thesis explores the experience of international students in Sweden with blended learning and the uses of technology during the post-pandemic era. Based on a qualitative design, and semi-structured interviews with six international students, participation and experience in the transition from off-campus learning to on-campus learning has been identified. Challenges and opportunities associated with blended learning and the uses of technology were also discussed during the same period. In addition, students' attitudes towards the use of technology were studied during the same period. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Active learning theory, the findings were analysed. The results of the study show differences in international students' perspectives on blended learning and the use of technology. Furthermore, the study also shows that students' skills about using technology were developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to international students, a new academic strategy regarding curricula and teaching methods, must be developed in order to improve future learning in higher education. Which means that traditional curricula should changes to suites more online and blended learning. In addition, that teachers should use always different teaching methods than they do today.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted all sectors of society including medical education. Medical schools are faced with an ethical dilemma pitting quality of medical education against student safety and delivering quality patient care. This paper identifies the different participants affected by a medical school’s decision on how to educate their students, discusses the current context of the pandemic, and analyzes the different options medical schools have. This paper defines two phases of the pandemic whereby phase two is defined as the time period the scientific community has an adequate understanding of the risks associated with COVID-19 and hospitals have adequate personal protective equipment. Phase one is simply the time before both of those criteria are met, and is the time when medical students should not be allowed on in-person clinical rotations. During phase two, students should be granted agency to make the decision for themselves. Using the analysis of the current pandemic, the paper outlines how medical schools’ decisions should change for future hypothetical pandemics. / Urban Bioethics

The COVID-19 Pandemic has exemplified the weaknesses in science education. Americans struggle to understand the scientific process and why its findings change. This has caused skepticism to brew. Since museums serve their respective communities as translators of complex information, then they also must support the enhancement of science literacy. To enhance science literacy, digital content must first explain how science is relevant and then explain how the scientific process works. History institutions have the perfect opportunity to walk their audiences through a step-by-step process to understand the changing face of science better. This study accounts for a website I developed to 1.) put in practice some of the essential science literary lessons intuitions might use, and 2.) connect audiences with resources of the 1918 Flu Pandemic. The 1918 Flu Pandemic serves as a model for how history can help explain complex scientific ideas and their relevance to the present due to seasonal outbreaks of influenza and the COVID-19 Pandemic. / History