Campus Resilience: Educational Strategies to Elucidate Impact Factors and Implement Recommended Recovery Methods in Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Through utilizing diverse methods, education provides a unique path both to discovering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and recommending recovery methods. During 2021-2022, we implemented a variety of educational opportunities - including special topics and directed studies courses, campus-wide presentations, and extracurricular activities - toward this end. Initially, we offered a special topics course in which Biomedical Sciences (BIMS) students explored foundational knowledge about the COVID-19 virus and its pandemic potential. This information was subsequently shared with their peers in a creative video presentation. Additionally, interdisciplinary faculty formed a publicly shared discussion panel regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and its significance to national recovery. This panel educated the students and public about the vaccines in addition to reinforcing participation for the on-site campus COVID testing and vaccine clinics. Next, we created a directed studies course in which BIMS and Public Health students researched the impact of the pandemic on mental health and proposed recovery methods through exercise. These students then presented their literature review findings and potential recovery methods to their peers in a presentation for the campus’s Fall Welcome Week as well as publicly at the Florida Behavioral Health Conference. Finally, we implemented the suggested recovery options on our campus. Another special topics course focused on exercise physiology was offered to equip students for proper exercise without injury. Additionally, freely available extracurricular activities like yoga and workout classes were offered, along with green exercises like gardening, kayaking, and trail walking, to improve campus resilience following the pandemic.



Author Information
Charity Cavazos, Texas A & M University, United States
Catherine Silkwood, Texas A & M University, United States
Negin Mirhosseini, Texas A & M University, United States

Paper Information
Conference: IICE2023
Stream: Teaching Experiences

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Posted by James Alexander Gordon