Non-Verbal Communication in the Context of Social Presence in Virtual Space

Studies related to non-verbal communication in virtual space need to be explored as a result of changes in communication processes that largely rely on online interaction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Undoubtedly, it has extended the scope of understanding an individual’s virtual presence and the effectiveness of non-verbal communication practices. In this study, non-verbal communication is explored in the process of online teaching and learning. Social Presence Theory has been used in understanding the practice of lecturers to establish relationships through their virtual presence and build closeness with students during online teaching and learning. In-depth interviews were conducted with a total of ten students of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). This study has found that lecturers can establish relationships and closeness with students through non-verbal communication cues such as kinesic, proxemic, chronemic, and paralinguistic. Lecturers who practice effective non-verbal communication enable a positive effect on students in terms of motivation to learn, focus in learning sessions, create interest in understanding topics, and feel at ease in learning. However, the lecturers' non-verbal communication has had a negative effect if the lecturer is unable to build a good relationship especially in terms of chronemic and facial expressions cues. It will cause students to be unmotivated and experience emotional stress. In conclusion, non-verbal communication is still vital in the process of establishing a social presence and building relationships even online. The practice of non-verbal communication during the individual social presence in virtual space needs to be explored in other contexts such as in organisations. Keywords: Non-verbal communication, online learning, qualitative, Social Presence Theory, Covid-19.

Strengthening Experiential Learning: Innovative Virtual Engagement Strategies of Community Education Organizations

This study focused on the impact of COVID-19 on K-12 access to community education organizations such as museums, theaters, and art studios. Participants from five community education organizations were interviewed to explore and understand their experiences of developing and promoting virtual resources. While each organization responded differently, three approaches for adaptation and innovation were critical: existing virtual presence, collaboration, and responding to e-learning fatigue. Organizations found that the leveraging of technology in the short term may enhance K-12 access to their resources in the future.

Describing the Experiences of Students with ADHD Learning Science Content with Emerging Technologies

Emerging technologies, such as virtual reality, haptics, and 3-dimensionality, provide novel opportunities to allow students to investigate scientific phenomena by fostering perceptions of virtual presence, the feeling of being sensorially immersed and authentically interacting within a computer-generated virtual learning environment (VLE). Neurotypical learners are largely represented in VLE research on science learning, with fewer with neurodivergent learners, such as students with ADHD. This descriptive case study sought to address the dearth in the literature on neurodivergent students’ experiences, with emerging technologies, for learning science. Specifically, the case describes the extent to which neurodivergent learners experience the affordances of VLEs for science learning, as compared to their neurotypical peers, in: zooming, spatially orienting and rotating objects, viewing multiple representations and abstract processes in real-time, as well engaging in risk through multiple trials. Five middle grades students (diagnosed with ADHD) were assessed and observed using a tool (zSpace) that combines emerging technologies to learn cardiac anatomy and physiology. Students’ utterances of virtual presence and technological affordances were coded, and frequency counts and percentages were calculated, both individually and collectively. The results found that students most described sensory (41%), control (30%), and realism (26%) constructs with fewer reports of holding their attention (3%). Analyses of cardiac assessments found gains in scores for spatial rotation and viewing abstract processes, no change in score in viewing multiple representations, and a decrease in scores for spatial orientation. This case study provides unique insight into the needs of neurodivergent learners when using emerging technologies for science learning.

Religious Advertising as an Evolutionary Form of Canonical Text Retelling

Religious advertising is a new phenomenon within the Ukrainian media sphere. It is successfully developing within the framework of modern media technologies. The expansion of the semantic field of religious concepts, the citation of sacred texts, the synchronization of the visual-figurative series, the synchronization of the substitute characteristics of God were revealed in Ukrainian religious advertising. In traditional approaches, the substitutional function is realized mainly by anthropic visualizations and appeal to the Sacred text. Another substitutional type can be observed when the emphasis is on the verbalized story, rather than on the visual component. Characteristics of God's linguistic personality, behavioural models of God, status-role structure of interaction with God are modern substitutes of God. As a rule, the substitution is represented as a complex of the sensor experience verbalizators of the concept ‘OWN’. This type of substitution causes the comfortable feelings of high selfesteem, relaxation, security, care, associated with God as the subjective source of these states. As a result, a renewal of the subjective perceptual model of communication with God is achieved. The social perception of God, through the objectification of His virtual presence in informal interpersonal interaction, including sexual, domestic, cognitive, etc., is also enriched. On account of this, the level of tolerance in society to various manifestations of deviations from traditional normative ideas (religious, ethnocultural, gender, etc.) is growing.

Feasibility and acceptability of virtually coaching residents on communication skills: a pilot study

Background Developing communication skills is a key competency for residents. Coaching, broadly accepted as a training modality in medical education, has been proven a successful tool for teaching communication skills. Little research is available thus far to investigate virtual coaching on communication skills for telemedicine encounters. The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that virtually coaching residents on communication skills is feasible and acceptable. We surveyed 21 resident-faculty pairs participating in a “fully virtual” coaching session (patient, coach, and resident were virtual). Methods We asked 50 neurology resident-faculty coach pairs to complete one “fully virtual” coaching session between May 20 and August 31, 2020. After each session, the resident and coach completed a 15-item survey, including Likert-style scale and open-ended questions, assessing feasibility and acceptability. Descriptive statistics and qualitative content and thematic analyses were performed. Results Forty-two percent (21/50) of all eligible residents completed “fully virtual” coaching sessions. The overall survey response rate was 91 % (38/42). The majority of respondents agreed that the direct observation and debriefing conversation were easy to schedule and occurred without technical difficulties and that debriefing elements (self-reflection, feedback, takeaways) were useful for residents. Ninety-five percent of respondents rated the coach’s virtual presence to be not at all disruptive to the resident-patient interaction. Virtual coaching alleviated resident stress associated with observation and was perceived as an opportunity for immediate feedback and a unique approach for resident education that will persist into the future. Conclusions In this pilot study, residents and faculty coaches found virtual coaching on communication skills feasible and acceptable for telemedicine encounters. Many elements of our intervention may be adoptable by other residency programs. For example, residents may share their communication goals with clinic faculty supervisors and then invite them to directly observe virtual encounters what could facilitate targeted feedback related to the resident’s goals. Moreover, virtual coaching on communication skills in both the in-person and telemedicine settings may particularly benefit residents in challenging encounters such as those with cognitively impaired patients or with surrogate decision-makers.

Verbunden, nicht vermischt. Zum Verhältnis physiologischer und transzendentalphilosophischer Erklärungen bei Kant

In his appendix to Soemmerring’s On the organ of the soul, Kant famously rejects the idea of a local presence or seat of the soul in the brain as fundamentally misguided. „By contrast, a virtual presence“ of the soul, considered as a conceptual construct, is said to make it possible to treat „the question regarding the sensorium commune as a merely physiological task“. Where Kant’s German original reads „möglich“, Arnulf Zweig in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant translates surprisingly as „impossible“. This cardinal error shall be communicated to readers who do not habitually consult the German original. Against this background, I illuminate the Kantian position (1) with in-depth material from Kant’s respective drafts and (2) in contrast to the syncretistic–materialistic approach of Johann Jacob Wilhelm Heinse.