COVID-19: Vancouver Island University and Region

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https://hdl.handle.net/10613/23252

Selected open access scholarly and creative works and artifacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the regions and communities served by Vancouver Island University.

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 14

How local social service delivery pandemic lessons might shape post-COVID realities
(Canadian Association for Social Work Education, 2022) Schmid, Jeanette; Bradley, Holly
This contribution considers the ways in which COVID-19 impacted social service delivery in the central Vancouver Island region over 18 months after the declaration of the pandemic. Significant shifts in the external and internal environment were made to accommodate requirements of public health orders, ensure safety in service, and respond to the heightened needs of certain sectors of the population. The impact had a different character for each of six-month tranches studied. Lessons for a post – COVID-19 future include: make micro- to macro-level shifts that allow room for rapid adaptation; facilitate inclusion, especially of those most marginalized; and ensure ongoing reflection. This involves keeping in mind the needs of service users, service providers, and the community.
COVID bread-porn: Social stratification in a pandemic state
(Routledge, 2021) Mohabeer, Ravindra N.
Much has been and will continue to be made of ‘official responses’ to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly around the varying success of prescribed isolation practices and how well (or not) people, taken in aggregate, complied with them. This paper examines a more spontaneous response to COVID-19 isolation that emerged: bread-porn. Taken literally, bread-porn is the competitive display of gratuitous pictures of home-baked bread across social media (particularly in the ‘west’), shared by people isolated at home. On the surface, such pictures perfunctorily depict bread; yet, it is argued that these pictures are more nuanced than that, and that the bread itself is almost immaterial. ‘COVID bread-porn’ was a jockeying for social standing and represented one of many unique, if temporary, forms of do-it-yourself (DIY) cultural currency while people were less able to access other extant systems of representational social stratification. The paper discusses the value and significance of the suffix ‘porn’ with respect to struggles to understand the extremities of new systems of value, by linking how temporary COVID culture fit into the flow of the cultural changes that preceded it. The paper argues that the world faced the COVID pandemic at a tumultuous time, ones marked by liminality between historically ‘physical’ and emerging ‘cerebral’ cultural practices in many societies (i.e. the move from manufacturing to ‘knowledge’ economies). Thus, it situates bread-porn as an attempt to ‘win’ at isolation by demonstrating prowess with available domestic resources, and highlights the productive tension of bread-porn that extends and potentially resists the social imperatives of pandemic self-management.
Fostering K-12 student-teacher and collegial relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for teacher education
(Canadian Association for Teacher Education, 2022) Riedel, Marian; Moll, Rachel; Taplay, Alison; Fisher, Paige
This community-based participatory action research project was prompted by the rapid shift to emergency remote learning in March-June 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A team of researchers at a regional teaching-focused university in BC initiated the research based on their shared belief that new understandings about the relational character of teaching and learning would come from an examination of the lived experience of educators during this difficult time. The study involved six community partners who collaborated with the researchers to co-develop the research questions and co-design data collection tools. The study was intended to be mutually beneficial for the teacher education program and the school districts/schools involved. It engaged 413 participants (teachers, administrators, educational assistants [EAs], and non-enrolling teachers) who answered survey questions about relationships, communication, equity and inclusion, shifts in practice, and leadership. This chapter is focused on data specific to the role of relationships in education and how relationships were impacted during the pandemic. Three themes emerged from the data analysis relevant to online learning environments, yet applicable across all modalities: relationality as a core value of BC K-12 educators, affordances and challenges for relationships, and affordances and challenges for equity. Recommendations specific to teacher education aim to advise teacher education programs to expand their focus on relationship building; to re-envision the work of teaching as a collaborative and not a solitary act; and to advocate for the inclusion of online teaching and learning pedagogies into teacher education programs.
Enabling hands-on, team-based project work during COVID-19
(American Society of Engineering Education, 2021-08-09) Dick, Brian
COVID-19 has impacted delivery of the first-year engineering design curriculum throughout the post-secondary system. At Vancouver Island University (VIU), instruction of the first-year curriculum shifted to an entirely remote learning environment where students were not expected to be in physical contact at any point during the term. This presented a significant challenge to delivering its learning outcomes and activities, particularly hands-on, team-based project work. At VIU, students typically complete a cornerstone design project in the second term of their firstyear of studies. Due to COVID-19, this project was modified to allow for completion within a virtual learning environment. Teams of three or four students were tasked to cooperatively create a rolling ball structure, built in isolation, but delivered and assembled at the University campus by the course instructor and its technician. This structure was required to form a path for a rolling ball, and interact with its neighbouring structures to create seamless track. Collectively, all team structures (a total of ten) formed a ring allowing for continuous ball movement once started. These pass-off points between each structure were determined collaboratively between both teams and individuals. This paper describes how a team-based cornerstone project experience was managed, and its impact on the student experience.
Long-term impact of COVID-19 on the first-year engineering experience at a mid-sized teaching focused university
(American Society of Engineering Education, 2022-08-23) Dick, Brian
This paper discusses the COVID-19 adaptions made within the first-year engineering design curriculum, and reflects on their impact fulfilling the required learning outcomes, mitigating student mental health issues, and addressing academic misconduct. It will further articulate the adaptations that are planned to be continued within the first-year experience as students return for face-to-face instruction. The impact of these changes will continue to be studied over the coming academic year.

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