Searching for "stress"

Virtual reality training

Benefits of Virtual Reality Training

According to a 2021 report, 75% of business leaders anticipate using Augmented or Virtual Reality by 2023. VR Training solutions have become a powerful way to revamp traditional training methods, and it’s as cost-effective

Baylor study took 20 subjects and taught them a fire safety procedure. Half with traditional methods (video presentation and reading) and half with a VR training experience. A week after their training they were all given a memory test with mock scenarios, and 70% of the VR group performed the right sequence of steps compared to 20% of the video group.

With VR, virtual environments can house as many pieces of hardware at whatever scale you’d like all at the same cost. Especially once a framework has been developed, adding new procedures, objects, or environments to your training can be designed and deployed within a few days.

Another one of the benefits of VR training is the ability for trainees to learn what they need to at their pace. If a certain training scenario is a challenge, it’s easy to reset a scenario from the beginning. If a trainee is confident in a process, they can jump to a final procedure test.

Virtual Reality allows for a risk-free environment, allowing learners to prepare themselves and train in these stressful situations without the possibility of danger.

During a VR experience, trainees can be exposed to stressful situations in safe conditions. Over time, these experiences reduce the stress or fear response of that stimuli, allowing learners to gain confidence in real scenarios. The increased multi-sensory aspect of an immersive experience can be incredibly similar to real-life stressors. In addition, there exists the ability to have controlled exposure of these situations based on the learner’s own limits.

As more sophisticated data collecting methods are being developed, such as eye or facial tracking, more metrics can be used to understand how people are reacting to VR training. This is probably most sought after in soft skills training, where emotional input plays a larger role.

VR headsets can be implemented remotely, greatly reducing the requirement for in-person training.

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More on virtual reality training in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=Virtual+reality+training

VR collaboration for veterans

Virtual reality collaboration is transforming Veterans’ health care

Augmented reality can be a valuable therapeutic tool for Veterans. Through a previous three-year evaluation of Veterans using Waya Health’s VR tools in inpatient and long-term care settings at the Western North Carolina VA Health Care System (WNCVAHCS), in Asheville, N.C., 84 percent of Veterans reported reduction in discomfort, 89 percent reported reduction in stress, 96 percent reported enjoying their experience, and 97 percent said they would recommend it to their peers.

XR in academic libraries survey

Lischer-Katz, Z., & Clark, J. (2021). Institutional Factors Shaping XR Technology Accessibility Policy & Practice in Academic Libraries. Survey. The EDUCAUSE XR (Extended Reality) Community Group Listserv <XR@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>. https://uarizona.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1Ya9id4uCXoktLv

participate in a survey is being sent out to those responsible for managing and providing XR technologies in academic libraries. This survey is part of a study titled “Institutional Factors Shaping XR Technology Accessibility Policy & Practice in Academic Libraries.” The principal investigator (PI) is Dr. Zack Lischer-Katz, PhD (Assistant Professor, School of Information, University of Arizona) and the co-principal investigator (Co-PI) is Jasmine Clark (Digital Scholarship Librarian, Temple University).

An Institutional Review Board (IRB) responsible for human subjects research at The University of Arizona reviewed this research project and found it to be acceptable, according to applicable state and federal regulations and University policies designed to protect the rights and welfare of participants in research

Please feel free to share this survey widely with colleagues.

Introduction

Over the past five years, many academic libraries have begun systematically integrating innovative technologies, including virtual reality (VR) and other “XR” technologies, into their spaces and services. Even though schools, libraries, and the library profession all stress equitable access to information and technology for all community members, accessibility – understood in terms of the design of spaces, services, and technologies to support users with disabilities – is rarely given sufficient consideration when it comes to the design, implementation, and administration of XR technology programs. Because XR technologies engage the body and multiple senses they show great potential for providing enhanced means for disabled users to access information resources; however, without accessibility policies in place, the embodied aspects of XR technologies can create new barriers (e.g., chairs and other furniture that cannot be adapted, controllers that cannot be adjusted for different degrees of dexterity, etc.)

Purpose of the study

The purpose of this study is to develop new understanding about the current landscape of accessibility policies and practices for XRtechnology programs and to understand the barriers to adoption of XR accessibility policies and practices.

The main research objective is to understand what policies and practices are currently in place in academic libraries and their level of development, the existing beliefs and knowledge of library staff and administrators involved with XR technology programs and spaces, and the institutional factors that shape the adoption of accessibility policies for XR technology programs.

The survey will be open from February 1, 2021 to April 30, 2021. More information regarding confidentiality and consent can be found at the beginning of the survey.

Please access the survey here:

https://uarizona.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1Ya9id4uCXoktLv

 

Thank you in advance for your interest and participation,

Sincerely,
Zack Lischer-Katz, PhD, Assistant Professor, School of Information, University of Arizona; email: zlkatz@email.arizona.edu

Jasmine Clark, Digital Scholarship Librarian, Temple University; email: jasmine.l.clark@temple.edu

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more on XR in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=extended+reality

more on XR in libraries in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=extended+reality+libraries

10 job skills for 2025

Here Are the Top 10 Job Skills for 2025

he two highest-ranked spots went to skills that didn’t appear at all on WEF’s previous list: 1) analytical thinking and innovation, and 2) active learning and learning strategies. Another skill cluster that didn’t make the previous list debuted at No. 5 — resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility.

“The pace of technology adoption is expected to remain unabated and may accelerate in some areas,” including the use of robots and artificial intelligence, the report said. Most businesses — 84 percent — plan to accelerate the digitalization of work processes and the use of digital tools, such as video conferencing,

  1. Analytical thinking and innovation
  2. Active learning and learning strategies
  3. Complex problem-solving
  4. Critical thinking and analysis
  5. Resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility
  6. Creativity, originality, and initiative
  7. Leadership and social influence
  8. Reasoning, problem-solving, and ideation
  9. Emotional intelligence
  10. Technology design and programming

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compare to 2015
https://www.slideshare.net/aidemoreto/gamification-and-byox-in-academic-libraries-low-end-practical-approach

burnout w Brene Brown

Brené with Emily and Amelia Nagoski on Burnout and How to Complete the Stress Cycle

Brené with Emily and Amelia Nagoski on Burnout and How to Complete the Stress Cycle

Staff Burn‐Out

First published: Winter 1974

https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1974.tb00706.x

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more on burnout in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=burnout

student-centered learning

Report: Most educators aren’t equipped for student-centered learning

https://www.educationdive.com/news/report-most-educators-arent-equipped-for-student-centered-learning/585012/

“the perfect combination of catalysts for a rapid conversion to student-centered schooling,” according to a new report from the Christensen Institute.

most K-12 educators aren’t equipped with the skill sets needed to run student-centered schools. For student-centered learning to be adopted, educators must be trained for student-centered competencies,

the report suggests school and district leaders:

  • Work toward a more modular professional development system, which includes specific, verifiable and predictable microcredentials.
  • Specify competencies needed for student-centered educators.
  • Compensate educators with bonuses for microcredentials to incentivize earning them.
  • Purchase bulk licenses to allow teachers the opportunity to earn microcredentials.
  • Demand and pay for mastery of skills rather than a one-time workshop.
  • Vet microcredential issuers’ verification processes, like rubrics and evaluation systems.

While testing could help with personalized instruction, a report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education stressed the need for professional development so teachers can interpret the resulting data and let it guide instruction this year.micr

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more on microcredentials in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=microcredential

Populism vs Meritocracy

Michael Sandel: ‘The populist backlash has been a revolt against the tyranny of merit’

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/06/michael-sandel-the-populist-backlash-has-been-a-revolt-against-the-tyranny-of-merit

Even a perfect meritocracy, he says, would be a bad thing.

Centre-left elites abandoned old class loyalties and took on a new role as moralising life-coaches, dedicated to helping working-class individuals shape up to a world in which they were on their own. “On globalisation,” says Sandel, “these parties said the choice was no longer between left and right, but between ‘open’ and ‘closed’. Open meant free flow of capital, goods and people across borders.”

“Those at the top deserved their place but so too did those who were left behind. They hadn’t striven as effectively. They hadn’t got a university degree and so on.” As centre-left parties and their representatives became more and more middle-class, the focus on upward mobility intensified.

Blue-collar workers were in effect given a double-edged invitation to “better” themselves or carry the burden of their own failure. Many took their votes elsewhere, nursing a sense of betrayal. “The populist backlash of recent years has been a revolt against the tyranny of merit, as it has been experienced by those who feel humiliated by meritocracy and by this entire political project.”

Does he empathise, then, with Trumpism? “I have no sympathy whatsoever for Donald Trump, who is a pernicious character. But my book conveys a sympathetic understanding of the people who voted for him. For all the thousands and thousands of lies Trump tells, the one authentic thing about him is his deep sense of insecurity and resentment against elites, which he thinks have looked down upon him throughout his life. That does provide a very important clue to his political appeal.

“Am I tough on the Democrats? Yes, because it was their uncritical embrace of market assumptions and meritocracy that prepared the way for Trump. Even if Trump is defeated in the next election and is somehow extracted from the Oval Office, the Democratic party will not succeed unless it redefines its mission to be more attentive to legitimate grievances and resentment, to which progressive politics contributed during the era of globalisation.”

“We need to rethink the role of universities as arbiters of opportunity,” he says, “which is something we have come to take for granted. Credentialism has become the last acceptable prejudice. It would be a serious mistake to leave the issue of investment in vocational training and apprenticeships to the right. Greater investment is important not only to support the ability of people without an advanced degree to make a living. The public recognition it conveys can help shift attitudes towards a better appreciation of the contribution to the common good made by people who haven’t been to university.”

A new respect and status for the non-credentialed, he says, should be accompanied by a belated humility on the part of the winners in the supposedly meritocratic race.

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Why meritocracy isn’t working

https://www.ft.com/content/f881fb55-8f06-4508-a812-815a10505077

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As we “knowledge workers” know, clever people aren’t always the most collaborative. And what they have in brainpower, they often lack in empathy. We live, after all, in a cognitive meritocracy in which IQ is valued much more highly than EQ (emotional intelligence) or most physical abilities.

political analyst David Goodhart, whose new book Head, Hand, Heart

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Over the past several decades, as traditional class structures in countries such as the US and the UK began to break down, they were replaced by a new system of educational and professional advancement based on test scores, grades and intelligence, at least as narrowly defined by IQ. Suddenly, smart working-class kids could become part of a meritocratic elite.

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But there was a dark side. As British sociologist Michael Young observed when he coined the term in his prescient book of dystopian fiction The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958),

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members of the working class must judge themselves not by their own standards — in which traits of character, experience, common sense and grit are often as important as test-based intelligence — but by the standards of the meritocratic elite. Without the appropriate degrees, professional qualifications and opinions sanctioned by their educated overlords, they were all too often deemed unworthy — or as Hillary Clinton once put it in a quip that helped end her political career, “deplorables”.

In their book Deaths of Despair, Anne Case and Angus Deaton spelt out the toll this has taken on working-class white men in particular. Contempt can be just as lethal as poverty — low status in a hierarchy produces the stress and anxiety that trigger immune system-damaging cortisol to be released in the body.

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more on populism in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=populism

on meritocracty in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=meritocracy

embedded librarianship overview literature

Abrizah, A., Inuwa, S., & Afiqah-Izzati, N. (2016). Systematic Literature Review Informing LIS Professionals on Embedding Librarianship Roles. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 42(6), 636–643. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2016.08.010
https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/api/fulltext-resolver/66b9b868-c505-32a9-b50f-c3fc51321c3f/?doi=10.1016/j.acalib.2016.08.010
identifies and documents embedding librarianship roles as reported in the Library and Information Science (LIS) literature.
Findings The roles of embedded librarians were identified, especially in the context of service delivery, all of which reported to be applied to academic libraries. Information literacy instruction, research and other scholarly activities, distance and online learning as well as embedding in classrooms, were described as ways of ensuring successful embedding librarianship. Implications The roles reported in the literature should inform practicing librarians contemplating embedding practices, guide formal embedded librarianship programs, and encourage other librarians to consider new skills in support of embedding roles.
p. 637 The idea behind EL model is to demonstrate librarians’ expertise asinformation specialists and to apply this expertise in ways that willhave a direct and deep impact on the research, teaching or otherworks being done (Carlson & Kneale, 2011).Carlson and Kneale(2011)pointed out that as librarians seek to redefine themselves, themodel of EL is generating interest as an effectual way of applying theknowledge and skills of librarians towards the information challengesof the digital age.
Faculty collaboration with the embedded librarian is the core of em-bedded information literacy instruction. Faculty-librarian relationshipbuilding is of great significance because the two must work closely to-gether over an extended period of time, it is essential that librarianschoose their partnership carefully. Several librarians stress the need towork only in partnerships where there is trust and mutual respect(Carncross, 2013). Librarians build these relationships in differentways, while collaborative relationship can be built in numerous ways,it is essential that bothparties have common goals and know the impor-tance of developing information literacy skills in their students. The most significant collaboration are from campuses in which librarian and university administrators have made information literacy a priority on campus, and have provided librarians and faculty with the time re-quired to make the collaboration successful (Cramer, 2013).
The embedded librarian is focused on course goals and learning objectives outside of the library and across the curriculum
The review designates that EL in courses, classrooms and depart-ments see librarians conducting the following specific tasks: teach stu-dents how to be savvy searchers using computer and laptops (Boyer,2015); collaborate where librarian and faculty member teach eachother, exchanging favors, and the librarian selecting useful resourcesfor the faculty (Ivey, 2003); take part in meetings to promote librarian’spresence and establish communication with the students, researchersand faculty (Jacobs, 2010); provide access to course-related library re-sources, in-class instruction sessions, library instructional handouts, in-formation on referencing style, library Webinar information as well asteach note-taking (Bezet, 2013).
The review shows that academic libraries that engage their distancelearning communities through an embedded librarian as online co-instructors to deliver technological applications such as instant messag-ing, e-mail, and wikis. This EL model facilitates direct interaction be-tween students and librarians regardless of physical proximity.Edwards and Black (2012)andEdwards et al. (2010)evaluated the pro-gram of embedded librarians in an online graduate educational technol-ogy course and found that students were helped with their onlineassignments.

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more on embedded librarianship in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=embedded

Thriving Through Fatigue

The Long Road Ahead: Thriving Through Fatigue

The Pandemic is not a financial recession: it is a fast-paced economic transformation. We’re transforming our companies into low-touch, high-safety businesses and we’re doing it a light speed.

We’re hyper-engaged digitally, yet highly stressed emotionally.

The most stressed part of the workforce is now young families, working mothers, and single employees working at home – and despite the online yoga classes and bread-baking videos, people are just tired.

Fatigue Management is what wins or loses wars.

  • Reduce workload by clarifying goals.
  • Create cadence and recovery cycles in the business.
  • CEO-level focus is needed
  • Take time off to rest, walk, and exercise every day. Stand up and walk around.
  • Turn off the TV and stop watching Twitter.
  • Take it slow. Don’t carry to heavy a load: you’ll get more done if you pace yourself over time.
  • If you’re a manager, help show people what “not to do.” Help people find focus, and don’t waste their time.
  • Turn off your Zoom camera and shorten meetings to 15 minutes if you can. Stop every meeting early.
  • Tell your team to take a week off. And don’t email while they’re gone. Things will be fine when they come back, and work will resume better than ever.
  • Be patient with your colleagues, peers, and yourself. People always want to do the best – right now it may just take a little more time.
  • Have some empathy for leadership. They are tired too. Ask them how they’re doing and let them know you care.

mindfulness school teachers

Effects of Mindfulness Training on School Teachers’ Self-Reported Personality Traits As Well As Stress and Burnout Levels

March 2020  Perceptual and Motor Skills 127(3):003151252090870 DOI: 10.1177/0031512520908708

Abstract
Among a sample of only female school teachers, we compared a mindfulness meditation (MM) training group (n = 19) with a waiting-list control group (n = 20) on several participant-completed questionnaires: the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, the Big Five Personality Inventory, the Teacher Stress Inventory, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. With these measures, we assessed the participants’ dispositional mindfulness, personality styles, and their stress and burnout. Following mindfulness training, teachers in the MM group showed higher trait mindfulness and conscientiousness and lower neuroticism and stress and burnout levels than teachers in the waiting-list control group. These results support the beneficial role of MM in individuals’ effective management of stressful conditions in the workplace.

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more on burnout in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=burnout

more on mindfulness in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=mindfulness

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