The United States along with the rest of the world has experienced an unprecedented disruption in daily life due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost everyone has experienced some sort of stay at home order resulting in an economic catastrophe greater than the Great Recession of 2008 and on par with the Great Depression almost a century ago.…

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, online credit recovery (OCR) was the most popular use of distance learning in high schools in the United States. With high course failure rates during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, high schools have turned to OCR to help students recover lost credit. This study examined the potential consequences of…

This article presents a synopsis of an interdisciplinary literacy-science, cross-country, fully remote service-learning (S-L) project prompted by and executed during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article shares discussions, analyses, and evaluations from both community partners (staff of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences…

Higher education institutions often provide physical education activity courses designed to meet learning outcomes associated with physical activity. However, these activity courses were shifted online during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated the impact of an online learning environment on educational outcomes of physical activity…

Virtual reality (VR) lab experiences for organic chemistry were developed at NC State University as an accessibility tool for students who are unable to attend in-person laboratories due to disabilities, attendance challenges such as pregnancy or military deployment, or safety concerns. The resulting first-person VR experiences are immersive and…

Capital investment on community college campuses had grown increasingly tricky to calculate correctly even before the coronavirus pandemic, as enrollment fluctuated, more students took online courses and employer needs continuously changed. To date, COVID-19 hasn't radically altered anyone's planning. But with that added factor thrown into the…

This Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative (the Collaborative) report examines how faculty and staff at seven community colleges and two broad-access universities reconsidered students' online learning needs in the midst of the pandemic. The report focuses on a set of interconnected student mindsets and competencies that the authors…

In this paper, undergraduate student attitudes towards rapidly shifting to an entirely online learning environment were assessed due to COVID-19. In addition, surveys on perceptions about misinformation in media, overall anxiety towards distance learning, knowledge of disease outbreak, and level of preparedness during the onset of the Coronavirus…

Evidence suggests that the rate of academic achievement fell by as much as half during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as demonstrated in this report using third-grade math test score data from North Carolina public schools, the pandemic's educational consequences vary considerably from school to school and district to district. The pandemic…

The study examines teacher perspectives on preparedness to implement the transition of over 50 million K-12 students to online and virtual teaching formats. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, students were instructed to remain at home and to avoid the potential dangers of virus spread in schools. Once this transition began, and then…

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the world continue. These impacts influence many aspects of life, work, healthcare, and education in the U.S., which are drastically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, a considerable challenge to tertiary-level education has been how to adapt our teaching styles and modalities to keep all…

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, signed into law by the president just over six months ago, represents a rare opportunity for governors to leverage federal education funds largely unencumbered by prescriptive federal rules. The bill appropriated $16.2 billion for K-12 education, and Congress astutely set aside $3…

Since March 2020, COVID-19 has required the implementation of remote learning options in K-12 public schools across North Carolina, ranging from fully online classroom experiences to hybrid scenarios in which students attend school both in person and remotely. In some locales, students continue to attend school in person most of the time, but with…

Community colleges across the country are plagued with tight budgets--caused in part by state disinvestment and chronic federal underfunding. For rural community colleges, these challenges are even more acute, as their needs are greater and the costs of providing services higher. The COVID-19 pandemic has only deepened the prosperity gap between…