02-07-2021 Education - Flipbook - Page 1
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2021 | | THE BALTIMORE SUN
EDUCATION
A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION OF BALTIMORE SUN MEDIA • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2021
1
INSIDE:
2 Real experiences
Hands-on learning
2 Teaching virtually
Technology’s role
3 Study abroad
Colleges pivot during
the pandemic
4 Student support
Ensuring academic
success
5 Distance learning
Continues to expand
6 Graduate programs
Out of classroom
opportunities
Education publishes five times a year
Carroll Community College’s Littlest Learners Child Development Center was one of the first areas on campus to reopen following the school’s complete closure during the pandemic. Photo courtesy of Carroll Community College.
Colleges caring during Covid
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Pandemic catalyst for community outreach
By Lisa Baldino, Contributing Writer
S
everal area colleges created new community outreach programs that are
rays of sunshine in the darkness of the
pandemic. These programs have had a
positive impact on the lives of students
of all ages and faculty who initiated them, as well
as on the local residents benefitting from them.
Carroll Community College (CCC) has made
serving its students and families a priority, and
everyone has reaped rewards as a result of
employees going the extra mile. The college’s
Littlest Learners Child Development Center was
one of the first areas on campus to reopen following the school’s complete closure during the
pandemic. The team there was well aware of the
difficulties working parents were having with
child care. “When we had the opportunity to
reopen on July 6, along with the college itself, all
staff members were on board with the idea. We
have been following the appropriate COVID19 guidelines and felt that we could offer our
families the opportunity to go back to work
and keep their children in a familiar child care
environment,” says Carole Williamson, program
director and associate professor, early childhood
education at CCC.
In addition to current families with preschoolers in the program, the center created a temporary
school age program, so that students in K-5 who
were learning virtually could have a supervised
environment. Amanda Beacham, program director for the center, has undertaken the task of
managing these students’ schedules and virtual
classes. Despite the fact that each student has a
different online schedule of classes and requirements, Beacham has them all organized for the
day and she assists in guidance where needed.
“The biggest thing for me is seeing the kids smil-
ing and enjoying playing with their friends who
they missed so much,” Beacham says. “One significant moment for us was an email from one of
our children’s parents and public school teachers
detailing how successful the child had been during virtual learning while in our care.”
Williamson explains, “With all of the changes
and uncertainty of the past 10 months, we want
to assure all of our families that we are providing
safe and consistent care to enable parents to concentrate on their jobs, and children to continue
the busy work of just being children.”
University of Maryland’s Women in
Engineering program (WIE) reaches out to middle schoolers, encouraging young women to pursue careers in engineering. Just 13% of professional engineers are women, says Becky Kenemuth,
assistant director of outreach and recruitment at
Community outreach,
continued on page 7
Colleges address health and
wellness needs of students
By Margit B. Weisgal, Contributing Writer
Are You Literate?
“Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and
compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts.”
– United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) https://
en.unesco.org
By Carol Sorgen, Contributing Writer
W
A new partnership with LifeBridge allows McDaniel College to expand health services for students on campus or those learning
remotely. Photo courtesy of McDaniel College.
by a counselor, included such topics as quarantine
self-care, the Yale Course on Happiness: The Science
of Well-being, drop-in meditation sessions, and journaling.
Virtual support groups have also provided students with a place to come together to learn new
skills, receive support, and share information and
resources, and included groups for students of color,
for LGBTQPIA+ and same-gender attracted students
of all, for those with learning challenges, for those
needing help in building their self-esteem, coping with
COVID-19, and for those who have lost a loved one.
While Parcover is pleased with the numbers of
Ask Margit
mbweisgal@gmail.com
Creative approaches help students manage their
physical and emotional well-being
hen Loyola University Maryland sent
its students home last March for their
health and safety in the midst of
the COVID-19 pandemic, the school
had to quickly roll out systems to
connect with them virtually, not just
from the standpoint of academics, but also for their
emotional well-being.
“We needed to provide a virtual space for them
that was safe, confidential and HIPAA-compliant,” says
Jason, Parcover, Ph.D., director of Loyola’s counseling
center. While there were challenges, such as connecting with students in different time zones or with
those who had limited access to technology or privacy,
Parcover is pleased at how quickly Loyola was able to
meet those challenges and provide a variety of options
for students to take advantage of, from one-on-one
counseling to virtual workshops and support groups,
and online peer-to-peer support through the worldwide mental community, Togetherall.
“Loyola prioritizes the need to provide students
with additional remote-based mental health support
while they navigate student life during a pandemic and
in a year in which they have already faced so many
disruptions,” says Parcover, who notes that college-age
students have not been immune from the anxiety,
depression and loneliness that have afflicted so many
this past year.
“At this age, when they’re essentially launching into
life, they have had to cope with a loss of connection
with their peers, their sense of community, and their
experiences of the world,” Parcover explains.
While students were away from campus during the
spring and fall 2020 semesters due to the coronavirus
response plan, the counseling center was committed
to offering support not only to students but to the
entire Loyola University community. Remote services
included assessment and recommendations, shortterm individual support services, “Let’s Talk” single
sessions, and consultations with students, parents,
and campus partners. Faculty members had access to
resources for supporting their students while teaching remotely, and parents could also review helpful
resources for supporting their offspring.
Other resources focused on relaxation and mindfulness to enhance the students’ self-care and give them
the opportunity to connect with their peers.
The online workshops, which have been facilitated
Above: Sheridan Danquah and Breanna Byrd,
UMBC students radio tracking songbirds. See article
on page 6.
students Loyola has been able to support in these
unprecedented times, he cautions that just because life
will eventually return to some semblance of normalcy,
our psychological well-being won’t necessarily return
simultaneously.
“We will all need time to process the trauma of
these times,” he says, adding that it is important for us
all to engage in intentional self-care, such as exercising,
eating well, following a sleep schedule, and connecting
with our loved ones, even if it must be done virtually.
“We will continue to need an extended period of
Health and wellness,
continued on page 7
Your years of education, the time you spend
in schooling, is special. You are in an environment where your primary job is to devote
yourself to expanding your knowledge, growing and evolving. Literacy today is a lot more
than its basic definition of reading, writing and
numbers.
Since you’ve read this far, you’re probably thinking, “Yes, of course I’m literate.” And
you’re right. But, today, there are all different
kinds of literacy. As we expand our understanding of what literacy means, it also helps us grow
personally by pinpointing areas of knowledge
that help us be more part of today’s world. For
example, the term “computer literacy,” now part
of the vernacular, only came into being in 1978.
Its cousin, digital literacy, arrived even later.
Now it’s just as important to understand
the framework in which you read, write or do
numbers. It’s also about communication. What
you read and write, your ability to comprehend the context, the information around those
words and their specific meanings in different
situations or aspects of life, suggest you have
a greater understanding of the subject matter.
Reading a book and grasping what it says is
pretty different from reading a text on your
phone.
Depending on where you look, you’ll find
as many as 20 different types of literacy. The
Cambridge Dictionary extends the definition of
literacy further, saying it is the “knowledge of a
particular subject, or a particular type of knowledge.” And the American Library Association’s
definition, says it “involves a continuum of
learning in enabling individuals to achieve their
goals, to develop their knowledge and potential,
and to participate fully in their community and
wider society.”
When you add “knowledge of a particular
subject” and “participate fully” to the definition,
it gives rise to all sorts of literacy, including the
following:
• Civic literacy: the knowledge and skills to
actively participate in a democracy
Ask Margit, continued on page 7
