Building a Sense of Community Online: Rapport Building Activities for a Remote Learning Environment

In addition to enthusing students early in their program about emergent areas of bioengineering, building community is a critical component of the introductory bioengineering course at University of the Pacific. Sense of belonging, particularly for students from marginalized groups, is found to encourage student success and retention in college and STEM major programs. Activities that support interpersonal, peer interactions further students’ sense of belonging. Significant effort has been made to construct a course structure and environment to enhance the community building experience. Collaborative activities, including discussions of readings, problem sets, brainstorming activities, and peer reviews, are used to promote peer to peer learning. Small groups are formed randomly and switched regularly to provide opportunities for students to work with many different classmates and get to know each other. While this structure promotes some rapport building, observation of past in-person classes suggests that interactions occurring outside of class are also powerful for students to connect and build friendships. These support networks burgeon from unstructured, impromptu conversations that occur across campus in the cafeteria, in the hallways, in the library, and at their desks before or after class. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and closure of campus in March 2020, our students were learning remotely from their homes in virtual classrooms and their conversations were mediated through technology. Spontaneous social interactions across campus were absent from their current college experience. Even conversation before and after class in our virtual space was minimal because it occurred in front of everyone. Thus, the challenge for shifting the introductory bioengineering course to a remote learning environment was to transform the collaborative activities of the course to encourage virtual peer interaction and to augment the course with rapport and community building activities to compensate for the loss of social interactions that would have occurred if we were on campus. In a review of the literature, Rovai summarizes building community in a traditional classroom in terms of four dimensions: (i) spirit or the friendship or bond between classmates, (ii) trust or the willingness and confidence to rely on classmates, (iii) interaction among classmates, and (iv) commitment to the common expectation of learning. Rovai expounds on seven components to cultivate these dimensions for online classrooms. These are: (a) transactional distance, (b) social presence, (c) social equality, (d) small group activities, (e) group facilitation, (f) teaching style and learning stage, and (g) community size. Transactional distance for online learning is a construct that describes the psychological and communications gap of the learner with the online learning environment. The distance is reduced with enhanced instructional immediacy interactions occurring between student to instructor, student to student, student to content, and student to instructional interface. Social presence is the awareness of participants in the classroom with each other. In a survey conducted by Vesely et al., students indicated that instructor presence through ongoing interaction was the most significant factor in promoting community in online learning environments. Social equality can be sustained in written online communication using the connected voice emphasizing Address correspondence to Shelly Gulati, Department of Bioengineering, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA. Electronic mail: sgulati@pacific.edu Biomedical Engineering Education ( 2022) https://doi.org/10.1007/s43683-022-00068-1 BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING SOCIETY

CHALLENGE STATEMENT
In addition to enthusing students early in their program about emergent areas of bioengineering, building community is a critical component of the introductory bioengineering course at University of the Pacific. Sense of belonging, particularly for students from marginalized groups, is found to encourage student success and retention in college 9,12 and STEM major programs. 6 Activities that support interpersonal, peer interactions further students' sense of belonging. 4,9 Significant effort has been made to construct a course structure and environment to enhance the community building experience. Collaborative activities, including discussions of readings, problem sets, brainstorming activities, and peer reviews, are used to promote peer to peer learning. Small groups are formed randomly and switched regularly to provide opportunities for students to work with many different classmates and get to know each other. While this structure promotes some rapport building, observation of past in-person classes suggests that interactions occurring outside of class are also powerful for students to connect and build friendships. These support networks burgeon from unstructured, impromptu conversations that occur across campus in the cafeteria, in the hallways, in the library, and at their desks before or after class.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and closure of campus in March 2020, our students were learning remotely from their homes in virtual classrooms and their conversations were mediated through technology. Spontaneous social interactions across campus were absent from their current college experience. Even conversation before and after class in our virtual space was minimal because it occurred in front of everyone. Thus, the challenge for shifting the introductory bioengineering course to a remote learning environment was to transform the collaborative activities of the course to encourage virtual peer interaction and to augment the course with rapport and community building activities to compensate for the loss of social interactions that would have occurred if we were on campus.
In a review of the literature, Rovai 8 summarizes building community in a traditional classroom in terms of four dimensions: (i) spirit or the friendship or bond between classmates, (ii) trust or the willingness and confidence to rely on classmates, (iii) interaction among classmates, and (iv) commitment to the common expectation of learning. Rovai 8 expounds on seven components to cultivate these dimensions for online classrooms. These are: (a) transactional distance, (b) social presence, (c) social equality, (d) small group activities, (e) group facilitation, (f) teaching style and learning stage, and (g) community size. Transactional distance for online learning is a construct that describes the psychological and communications gap of the learner with the online learning environment. 13 The distance is reduced with enhanced instructional immediacy interactions occurring between student to instructor, student to student, student to content, and student to instructional interface. 5,11,13 Social presence is the awareness of participants in the classroom with each other. In a survey conducted by Vesely et al., 11 students indicated that instructor presence through ongoing interaction was the most significant factor in promoting community in online learning environments.
Social equality can be sustained in written online communication using the connected voice emphasizing relationships and cooperation, rather than the separate voice which can sometimes be authoritative and threaten inclusivity. 8 Small group interactions enrich community through engaged, collaborative learning. This is further enhanced with group facilitation to keep the group on track and functioning well together. 8 Alignment of teaching style to learning stage also supports sense of community. 8 In online settings, this may require the instructor to modulate for individual students depending on their stage of learning. Finally, a smaller community size (or class size) encourages sense of community. 8 In addition to taking the introductory bioengineering course, first-year bioengineering students are also enrolled together into the same biology lecture section, to create a cohort-based learning community (LC) experience. LC structures have been found to promote retention, student success, and feelings of connection to the campus community. 3,10 The biology course has large enrollment (400-450 students) and is split into many lecture sections of 30-80 students. The bioengineering cohort has a different instructor each year, each utilizing varying levels of active learning. This creates an unpredictable learning environment for its contribution to the LC experience. As a result, the bioengineering course (20-30 students) is the opportunity in the LC to ensure engaging, collaborative teaching practices that promote a sense of belonging to the bioengineering community.
Additionally, there are a few new transfers and internal transfers from other majors on campus taking the course. While they do not participate in the LC, the planned activities in class aim to promote their sense of belonging.

NOVEL INITIATIVE
A combination of new and adapted rapport and community building interventions-shared expectations, virtual social interactions, and group activities-customized for a remote learning environment were used in this class. These interventions integrated some of the components to foster online classroom community discussed in Rovai 8 and summarized in the previous section.
As previously noted, small group activities have regularly been used in this class to promote peer learning. Reflection on my in-person teaching revealed considerable reliance on continual monitoring of groups to support group facilitation. I could scan group progress simultaneously and identify when I should facilitate by asking probing questions, encouraging discussion from quiet group members, or adding complexity to problems if a group's efforts appeared to lull. I audited their work during class rather than having them turn in low-stakes assignments.
The dispersed nature of virtual breakout rooms does not permit concurrent observation of all groups or efficient review of collaboration. As such, it was clear that to ensure that the interpersonal, peer interactions that are vital to developing students' sense of belonging 4,9 occurred in the breakout rooms, well-defined deliverables and expectations for peer interactions would be necessary for class activities to reduce the transactional distance, enhance social presence, and support group facilitation.

Shared Expectations
The first intervention was to develop shared expectations as a collaborative activity to build community. The objective was for students to jointly set the expectations of the course, themselves, the instructor, and their classmates. This allowed students to design the ground rules for the class on the behaviors they mutually felt would enable a safe, supportive, collaborative classroom environment; student-generated ground rules may encourage engagement and investment in the class. 2 Idea generation occurred during of the first session (~30 min) and then two subsequent sessions (~20 to 30 min each) were devoted to agreeing on the areas of expectations. The shared expectations were posted to the course's homepage on the learning management system. After six weeks, we reflected on the list and students had the opportunity to add or modify them as well as provide any comments. A detailed description on the implementation is included in Online Resource 1.

Virtual Social Interactions
New activities were added to encourage virtual social interactions. The first activity was student introductions and responses to a check-in question. These occurred at the start of nearly every class in the first half of the semester. The class was split randomly into groups of 8-10 students and sent to breakout rooms for five minutes to introduce themselves and answer the question in a word or short phrase. Examples of questions are: What's one thing you're doing or planning to do to take care of yourself this week?What's the hardest part about learning virtually for you? The best part?
One random student in each group was designated the group leader/timekeeper and their role was to be the first to share and to ensure that each classmate has the opportunity to contribute during the time allotted. After the group leader/timekeeper completes their introduction and response to the question, they invite another student to go next. This continues until everyone has participated. On the first instance, time was devoted to fully explain the deliverables and interaction expectations, but after a couple rounds students were familiar with the format and that was no longer needed. Finally, if later in the class there was group work, the teams were formed from subgroups of this activity for continuity and further rapport building.
During the second half of the semester, a related activity was conducted where students responded to a check-in question in the chat at the start of class. I also participated in this activity reading out loud my response and the student responses as they came in. I frequently observed head nods and smiles signaling agreement with commonly shared feelings and responses. More examples of questions are provided in Online Resource 2.

Group Activities
Active learning group activities that promote social interaction through problem-based and cooperative learning that were included in-person were adapted for virtual learning. In-person, I could monitor progress, listen to group conversations, and invite some groups to share when we reconvened as a class. Virtual classroom logistics require groups to complete the group activity in breakout rooms with a time limit. To ensure that students were accountable during class time for problem-based work or group design project work, they were required to complete a worksheet deliverable (group or individual) summarizing their problem solution or documenting aspects of the development of their design idea completed during the class session, respectively. This was counted in their class participation score.
A final activity updated to encourage peer interaction and learning was brief group discussions. In some sessions, prompts are interspersed in the lecture for small group discussion. A group leader/timekeeper was assigned for this activity. Their role was to be the spokesperson for the group summarizing their answers to the prompts and also to ensure that everyone in the group contributes to the discussion. As with other group work, teams were randomly formed and the group leader randomly selected.
A summary of the activities including the frequency, deliverables, related community building component, expectations for peer interactions and implementation can be found in Table 1.

REFLECTION
Creation of shared expectations was a useful activity that I plan to continue following the COVID-19 pandemic when teaching in-person. It emphasizes the third component of successful LCs described by Tinto, 10 shared responsibility, or the responsibility to each other in the learning process. Shared responsibility had not been made an explicit part of the LC until now. The two other components, shared knowledge and shared knowing, had previously been incorporated in the LC with students taking courses together along a theme and through social and academic interactions to promote learning together, respectively. 10 Student responses on shared expectations illuminated that building friendships was important to them as was ensuring a supportive collaborative environment. In addition, it was also beneficial to understand their expectations of me to be encouraging and approachable and establish a classroom environment that promotes learning and growth.
I also used the shared expectations as a tool to revisit their mutually established expectations of collaboration at the 6-week mark. This was done as a response to feedback that some interactions during group work were not fulfilling the expectation of being supportive and respectful. We dedicated class time to review and update our expectations and provide comments. I also included instruction on giving feedback that challenges their peers to improve while also being supportive. Student comments during this review affirmed that the class was engaging, interactive, and fun and provided them opportunity to explore their interests. Students also requested that they be permitted to select their group members for some activities, which indicated that some had already built a rapport with classmates.
Identifying deliverables and defining expectations for peer interactions for the new and updated community building activities (introduction and check-in question, check-in questions in chat, small group discussion, small group activities, and group design project activities) was essential. The structure provided clear direction to groups and enabled efficient and effective use of class time. And if groups came across questions in their breakout room, they still had the option to request help. A similar structure, particularly to identify group leader/timekeeper would be useful inperson as well. The interactions with peers that occur in these activities have been identified as important factors that support STEM LC students' academic development. 1 These efforts to update peer to peer learning activities for the virtual classroom and the addition of numerous rapport and community building activities These expectations are in addition to those defined by students in the shared expectations activity.

BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING SOCIETY
were intended to influence students' sense of belonging. Unfortunately, this was not measured directly with a validated instrument such as the Classroom Community Scale (CCS) survey. 7 However, a few takeaways from the remote class are encouraging. First, the very high attendance (nearly all sessions had 100% attendance, excluding excused absences) may be an indicator, albeit indirect, of the community feeling of the course. Additionally, students were provided the option to enroll as a bioengineering cohort in the same section of the second semester biology course in spring. Despite the early start time, 80% of students (n = 15) indicated that they wanted to take the course together.
The previous year's cohort taught in person also had the option to take the second semester course together at the early time. Most of the students indicated they did not want to take the course together at that time, so a cohort section was not formed. Additionally, a survey was conducted at the end of the semester. The students in the remote LC (n = 14) were asked to rate their agreement with the following statements on a Likert scale: ''I have developed good relationships with other students in Bioengineering'' and ''I feel a sense of belonging to the Bioengineering community at Pacific.'' In response to whether they developed good relationships with other bioengineering students, 79% either agreed or strongly agreed and the remaining 21% responded neutral. This was lower than the previous year's in-person cohort (n = 16) where 87.5% agreed or strongly agreed and 12.5% were neutral or disagreed. In response to whether they felt a sense of belonging to the bioengineering community, 79% either agreed or strongly agreed and the remaining 21% were neutral or disagreed. This was higher than the previous year's cohort where 69% agreed or strongly agreed and 31% were neutral or disagreed. Open-ended questions were also included in the survey and offer insights into the sense of community. Some student responses to the question, ''Do you have any additional comments about your experience taking BIOL 51 with your Bioengineering peers?'' were: ''I enjoyed taking BIO 051 with my [bioengineering] peers, and it allowed us to become better friends and bond over common experiences.'' ''It was nice to have someone with me who is also a bioengineering major.'' A couple of student responses to ''Do you have any recommendations for improving the learning experience in these courses?'' were: ''None. I feel that my [bioengineering] peers and I were able to work well in supporting one another.'' ''If all the bioengineering [students] took a Tuesday lab together that would be super helpful. I often felt alone and isolated in lab because I didn't know anyone.'' While these survey results are encouraging, use of the CCS survey, a validated instrument 7 to measure sense of community in classrooms, would provide a more robust assessment of connectedness and learning in the LC. The CCS survey will be used in the future.
The one-year retention rate of 72% for this remote learning cohort in bioengineering is also favorable. None of the students switched majors. This is especially promising in light of the disrupted academic environment produced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The previous in-person cohort had a 53% retention rate within bioengineering and an 82% retention rate in a STEM major. In the future, the graduation rate of this remote cohort within the Bioengineering program and STEM will be evaluated.
Developing shared expectations, virtual social interactions, and collaborative activities with deliverables and defined expectations for peer interactions may be useful classroom techniques to cultivate feelings of belonging to a class. Together with a LC structure, this may nurture an inclusive and welcoming environment for students to a major program and the university.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am extremely grateful to Dr. Leslie Bayers and Dr. Lott Hill in the Center for Teaching and Learning at University of the Pacific for their training and support for the transition to online teaching.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Not applicable.

FUNDING
The author did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

DATA AVAILABILITY
Survey data and instructional materials available on request.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The author has no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article.

ETHICAL APPROVAL
The protocol for the inclusion of student data was reviewed and deemed exempt by the University of the Pacific Institutional Review Board (IRB) Protocol #:IRB2021-1.

CONSENT FOR PUBLICATION
Not applicable


THE EFFECT OF STUDENT'S CREATIVITY AND LEARNING INTEREST ON LEARNING ACHIEVEMENT IN ECONOMIC STUDENTS CLASS XI IPS SMA EKASAKTI PADANG

This research is motivated by the not yet optimal learning achievement in Economics subjects for class XI Social Sciences SMA Ekasakti Padang, where 42.11% get learning outcomes below the minimum completeness criteria, namely 78 with a range of 0-100. The purpose of the study was to reveal the effect of students' creativity and interest in learning on the economics learning achievement of students in class XI IPS SMA Ekasakti Padang. This type of research is descriptive with a quantitative approach. The population of this study were all students of class XI IPS SMA Ekasakti Padang, consisting of two classes totaling 38 people. While the sampling technique of this research is total sampling. Student achievement data was obtained from the economics teacher at SMA Ekasakti Padang. While the data on creativity and interest in learning through a questionnaire using a Likert scale that has been tested for validity and reliability. The data were analyzed using statistical methods with the help of SPSS (Statistics Product And Service Solutions) Version 22.0 software. The results showed: (1) Creativity has an effect of 14% on learning achievement; (2) Interest in learning has an effect of 41.8% on learning achievement; (3) creativity and interest in learning together have an effect of 50.3% on learning achievement. So it can be concluded that creativity and interest in learning affect learning achievement, the higher students' creativity and interest in learning in the learning process, the better learning achievement and learning achievement will be higher.

INTRODUCTION
In the implementation of the learning process in schools, in general, various problems arise that affect students (as subjects of the school education system) to achieve the educational goals that have been set. One of the problems faced in learning in schools is the low creativity and interest in students' learning.
Education has an important role in improving the quality of human resources such as social, spiritual, intellectual and professional abilities, humans who have good quality are the main force in successful development. This is in accordance with Law no. 20 of 2003 Article 1 concerning the National Education System which states that: "Education is a conscious and planned effort to create a learning atmosphere and learning process so that students actively develop their potential to have religious spiritual strength, self-control, personality, intelligence, noble character. , as well as the skills needed by himself, society, nation and state". The law interprets that education has an important role in developing all the potential that exists in every human being, in order to create human qualities that are faithful, devoted, creative and independent. Educational institutions, especially schools, are responsible for implementing quality learning in order to achieve the educational goals set out in the law.
Based on the initial observations made, there are symptoms that are still not optimal student learning achievement. This can be seen from the learning outcomes obtained by students in the economics subject of class XI IPS SMA Ekasakti Padang, there are still many students who have not reached the predetermined target for Economics subjects, the minimum completeness criteria (KKM) is 78. Based on the table above, it is known that the learning achievement of grade XI IPS students at SMA Ekasakti Padang is still not optimal, because the KKM standard is at 78 and there are still scores below the standard of completeness and not yet reach KKM. Out of 38 students, around 22 students (57.89%) have met the KKM. Meanwhile, there are still around 16 students (42.11%) whose learning achievement has not yet reached the KKM limit.
The low learning achievement of students which causes the factors that affect a person's learning achievement are classified into factors from within students, namely physiological and psychological factors and factors from outside students, namely social and non-social factors. In addition, there are several other factors that can affect learning outcomes such as teacher factors, student factors, facilities and infrastructure factors, and environmental factors.
From the factors that have been explained, it is necessary to see which factor is more dominant in influencing student learning achievement, based on observations from observations that have been made at SMA Ekasakti Padang, about the number of students who are below the KKM score caused by several factors, one of them is the lack of student creativity in learning. Seen during the lesson, some students tend to be passive, indifferent, do other tasks and look for their respective activities, and students tend to wait for all information from the teacher, besides that students are also less confident either asking questions, responding to friends' questions, or convey ideas when the teaching and learning process occurs.
Creativity is a person's ability to produce compositions, products, or ideas that are basically new, and previously unknown to the creator. It can be in the form of imaginative activities or synthesis of thoughts, the results of which are not only summaries but have a purpose or purpose, not mere fantasy. By being creative, a person can actualize himself, something that is a basic human need today. People who usually manifest themselves are people who successfully develop and use all their talents and abilities so that they can enrich the quality of their lives.
Interest is a sense of liking and a sense of attachment to a thing or activity, without anyone telling. Interest is a psychological aspect that grows in a person, so that with the emergence of interest there will be a tendency in that person to like, have and learn about what he is interested in. In other words, if students do not have an interest in the learning process, the learning outcomes obtained by these students will not be optimal compared to students who have a high interest in learning in these subjects.
Good learning achievement is not only influenced by motivational factors, creativity that comes from within (intrinsic), but is also influenced by factors that come from outside (extrinsic). Thus, interest in learning is closely related to the way students learn. An active way of learning will make it easier for students to master the subject matter, if students easily master the subject matter, student learning outcomes will increase. Thus it can be said that interest in learning has an important position in supporting the teaching and learning process in schools.
Based on observations from observations made at SMA Ekasakti Padang, the number of students who are below the KKM score is caused by several factors, one of which is the lack of student creativity in learning. Seen during the lesson, some students tend to be passive, indifferent, do other tasks and look for their respective activities, and students tend to wait for all information from the teacher, besides that students are also less confident either asking questions, responding to friends' questions, or convey ideas when the teaching and learning process occurs.

METHOD
This research is a descriptive study with a quantitative approach. According to Sugiyono (2012: 8) "Research methods based on the philosophy of positivism are used to examine certain populations or samples, collect data using research instruments, and analyze quantitative/statistical data, with the aim of testing predetermined hypotheses".
The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire where the validity and reliability of this questionnaire were tested. Of the 30 creativity items, there are 22 items that are valid and 8 items that are not valid, while the interest in learning from the 30 items contains 23 items that are valid, while those that are not valid are 7 items.
The description of the data is done to determine the position of the data in a group. The description aims to reveal the mean, mode, median, variance and standard deviation in order to describe the distribution of the data and the level of achievement. To describe the data used descriptive statistical analysis techniques. This research was conducted on students of class IX IPS SMA Ekasakti Padang.
To determine the level of achievement of respondents in each variable, the formula is used: To test the requirements for analysis, several tests are carried out: (1) Normality test using the Liliefors Kolmogrof Smirnov test, (2) Linearity test (3) Multicollinearity test by looking at the Variance Inflation Factor is carried out with the help of SPSS version 22 . Hypothesis 1 and 2 tests are used to prove the truth of hypotheses 1 and 2 that have been formulated, the results of which will be used as conclusions for the research that has been carried out. The technique used to test hypotheses 1 and 2 is a simple linear regression technique. In general, Ghozali (2005) formulates the statistical (partial) t-test as follows: Description: t = Following the function with degrees of freedom Sb = Standard standard b = Regression coefficient If t count > t table then the data is significant at = 0.05 with degrees of freedom (df) = nk-1. Hypothesis 3 test is used to prove the truth of hypothesis 3 that has been formulated, the results of which will be used as the conclusion of the research that has been done. The technique used to test hypothesis 3 is multiple regression technique with F test (simultaneous). To prove the relationship of all independent variables to the dependent variable together, namely variables X 1 and X 2 against Y is used the F test formula quoted from (Riduwan, 2008: 142), which is as follows: Where: F = calculated F value R 2 = Determination/regression coefficient value k = Number of independent variables n = Number of samples To see The percentage of the contribution/influence of variable X to variable Y is used the coefficient of determination formula (Riduwan 2008: 139).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Descriptive Results of Research
Variables Creativity variable data was collected through a questionnaire consisting of 22 statements and learning interest consisted of 23 statements and Interest variable data was collected through a questionnaire consisting of 23 items which had been tested for validity and reliability. Furthermore, a questionnaire was given to 38 respondents to be filled in. Statistical calculations, while learning achievement was obtained from the final grades of the semester and the results of statistical calculations can be seen in the table below.

Creativity
Based on the table above, the research data obtained the lowest (minimum) 79 and highest (maximum) 106, average (mean) 90.55, middle score (median) 90, 50, the score that appears a lot (mode) is 82, and the standard deviation (standard deviation) is 7.229, while the total score (sum) is 3441.
To determine the average level of achievement of respondents on interest in learning, the following formula is used:

Level of achievement
x 100% =82,32% From the data the level of achievement of the creativity score of 82.32% is included in the high category.

Interest in Learning
From the research interest in learning data, the lowest (minimum) score of 84 and the highest (maximum) 104, the average (mean) 90.34, the middle score (median) 95.00, the most frequent score (mode) 92, and The standard deviation (standard deviation) is 4.289, while the total score (sum) is 3623.
To determine the average level of achievement of the respondents' interest in learning, the following formula is used: From the data on the level of achievement of the interest score learning by 82.90% included in the high category.

Learning Achievement
From the results of the assessment obtained the value of learning achievement obtained the lowest score of 60 and the highest value of 90 based on the distribution of these values obtained an average (mean) = 75.53, middle score (median) = 75, the most frequent score (mode) = 75, and standard deviation (standard deviation) = 7,780 and while the total score (sum) is 2870.
To determine the average level of achievement of respondents on learning achievement, the following formula is used: Level of achievement = x 100% = 75,52 % Based on the resultsobtained the level of achievement of respondents learning achievement of 75.52% included in the medium category.

Prerequisite Test Results Analysis a. of the Normality
Test The normality test used is the Lilliefors by looking at the value on the Kolmogorov-Smirnov. Based on table 21, it is known that the tolerance value of the creativity variable (X1) and interest in learning (X2) is 0.982 > 0.10 and the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) value for the two independent variables, namely creativity and interest in learning is 1.018. Because the VIF value is less than 5, it can be concluded that the regression model does not find any multicollinearity problems.

Hypothesis Testing
To test Hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2 were tested by simple linear regression test with -t test, while hypothesis 3 used multiple linear regression test with F test.  (1,690), or significant < alpha (0.021 < 0.05) then Ho is rejected and Ha is accepted, meaning that there is a significant influence between creativity (X1) on student learning achievement (Y) Percentage of creativity (X1) on student learning achievement (Y) by 14%, Munandar (2009: 19) suggests that "creativity is the ability to make new combinations based on previously existing materials, information and data to be meaningful and useful". 2. The second hypothesis is obtained t arithmetic = 5.085 and t table 1.690 (attachment 19), with df = nk-1 = 38-2-1 = 35 (k = number of independent variables). So it can be said that t count (5.085) > t table (1.690) or significant < alpha (0.000 < 0.05) then Ho is rejected and Ha is accepted, meaning that there is a significant influence between learning interest (X2) on learning achievement (Y). The percentage of the influence of interest in learning on learning achievement is 41.8%, Slameto (2010: 180) suggests "Interest is a sense of preference and a sense of attachment to a thing or activity, without anyone telling". 3. The third hypothesis This hypothesis was tested using the significance test of multiple linear regression with the F test (simultaneous). Obtained R2 (R square) of 0.503. Then the magnitude of the influence of creativity and interest in learning on learning achievement is 0.503 x 100% = 50.3%. This shows the magnitude of the influence of creativity (X1) and interest in learning (X2) together on learning outcomes is 50.3%.

CONCLUSIONS
Based on the results of the research that has been carried out, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1. Student creativity has an effect of 14% on student achievement in economics subjects for class XI Social Sciences SMA Ekasakti Padang. This shows that creativity has an effect on learning achievement and the higher the creativity, the better the learning achievement. 2. Students' interest in learning has an effect of 41.8% on student achievement in economics subjects for class XI IPS students at SMA Ekasakti Padang. This shows that the better the interest in learning, the better the learning achievement achieved. 3. Creativity and interest in learning together have a 50.3% effect on student achievement in economics class XI IPS SMA Ekaskti Padang, the remaining 49.7% is influenced by several other factors. This shows that the higher the creativity and interest in student learning, the better student achievement will be. Suggestions 1. For students should be able to further increase creativity in following the learning process. 2. It is hoped that students will be able to increase their interest in learning and be able to create a safer, more peaceful, and comfortable learning environment accompanied by support from related parties, namely the education office, principals, and teachers, so that the learning environment is better than before. 3. For teachers, they should be able to continue to develop and increase students' creativity and interest in learning which can encourage students to be more active in the learning process.


Joy in J. A. Comenius’s Conception

When we talk about the life of John Amos Comenius, we rarely associate it with joy. On the contrary, we know him as a person who faced many very unhappy situations in his life. However, Comenius in his works often mentions joy in various forms (laetitia, gaudium, voluptas, hilaritas). It is obvious that he perceives it as a  life attitude from which we can and should draw in our lives. It is not only the joy of education, but, above all, the joy of God that gives man much-needed hope in his sorrows and pains. In the following article, we will ‘immerse ourselves’ in Comenius’s thoughts and words that describe his attitude to life. We will follow the footsteps of Comenius’s work and search for his conception of joy, which is still necessary for our lives today. The article is based on the forthcoming headword Joy for the work called Encyclopaedia Comeniana. It required a  thorough study of Comenius’s  work mainly in the DJAK edition (Dílo Jana Amose Komenského, Praha: Academia, 1969–) and searching for this term in Comenius’s writings mainly in Czech and Latin. Due to the availability of texts in the Czech language, this work is not always quoted; other editions of Comenius’s work are also used as referenced in the footnotes.

Th e Concept of Joy
Joy is a person's mental state in which one experiences a feeling of pleasure and feels happiness. In other words, joy contains more than the currently used term well-being -a subjective feeling of contentment. Joy is not a static concept, as it has a number of degrees. It can be experienced either at the level of sensory satisfaction only (e.g., the joy of physical health, the joy of beautiful scenery of nature, or the joy of art, architecture, music, etc.). However, joy also has a mental and spiritual children from this fi rst marriage has not been historically documented. 3 Jan Amos KOMENSKÝ, O sirobě, Opera omnia, (DJAK 3), Praha: Academia, vol. 3, 1978, (pp. 427-472), here p. 434. It was prepared for publication by Milan Kopecký. Th e work was created during the year 1622 and published in 1624 for the fi rst time. 'Indeed, when a man loses a good friend, it usually comes to his mind what he has had in him and what he has lost with him fi rstly. Desire, longing, feeling of pressure, weeping and lamenting, the eyes fi lled with tears and heart with blood, drying and thinning of the bones -that all come from that, and man carries a soul almost dead in his living body. ' level. At these two levels, it can be understood as the driving force of life, associated with love as a principle of life, and as one of the basic preconditions of life. Joy (as understood by the author of this article) is not seen only as a fl eeting moment, a momentary fl ash lost in the past. It is not even a short-term fl eeting emotion that comes from satisfying needs. Joy is not just a fl eeting moment of happiness without long duration. On the contrary, joy is a lasting feeling of life, which is stored in the depths of our inner self and becomes a life attitude: staying on the top of things and of hardships. It becomes a shield that protects the aching soul and heart from despair and nothingness. Joy is a shield against anxiety and as such carries us through life. In the Czech language, he uses the following expressions: veselost -merriment, utěšení (potěšení) -comfort (pleasure), radost -joy, větší radost -greater joy, rozkoš (spojená však s bázní) -delight (but connected with fear); and verbally: jásat chtivostí -exults in avidity, těšit se -please oneself, radovat se -rejoice, obveselovat se (kochat se) -amuse oneself.
• Th e term laetitia is the most general term for joy, joyful response to welcome, desired things that are good; laetari involved expressing joy, enjoying a good thing with joy. Th e related word oblectare means to bring joy by reminding one of a welcome, desired thing in the sense of being pleased, to please. • Th e term gaudium is an expression of greater, deeper joy (laetitia profundior), when someone is full of joy, one's heart trembles with joy, one jumps (fi guratively speaking), exults in joy, is fi lled with joy. • Comenius calls externally manifested joy shown through the senses hilaritas. In other words, it is an expression of merriment (the defi nition is only for hilaris -it is joy manifested by the senses, movement of hands, body). Similarly, jucunditas is joy manifested by the senses. • Th e term voluptas then refers to the reaction to pleasant things; it means the delight of 'being good' and being pleased with the highest good. • Th e term deliciae then means delight, the ultimate delight.
From this small list we see that in Comenius's conception (and in both Latin and Czech) there is no joy as joy, that this word has diff erent connotations and thus not exactly the same meaning in all forms.

Joy as the Triple Delight of the Soul (Voluptas Animae) According to Comenius
According to J. A. Comenius, joy can also be seen as joy emanating from the triple delight of the soul. How to approach this concept? We will try to do this in the following lines, based on the texts in Comenius's Didaktika and Velká didaktika. How does Comenius consider joy here?  16 Th at spoils health, causes pain, illness and death. He understands it as the delight of the soul (voluptas animae), which is threefold, depending on its origin. 'Th e soul can have three kinds of delight, one in all things around; the second in oneself, the third in God. ' 17 Comenius explains the threefold origin of joy in the following way. Firstly, joy comes from things. One explores them and does some research, which brings pleasure and joy coming from the sharpening of reason (as evidenced by the biblical Book of Wisdom 8:16). Secondly, joy comes from ourselves when we observe how we understand the order of the world, the order of justice, when we see that the fulfi llment of this order brings 'inner order' to us depending on how human virtues and good conscience develop. Th irdly, Comenius distinguishes the highest degree of delight, the ultimate joy. Th is joy comes from God, from the feeling that man obtains the grace of God and exults in his Father's favour and melts with love for God.

Th e Joy (Delight) of Education in the Conception of Comenius
Th e highest degree of voluptas animae (delight of the soul) is also associated with the joy of education, virtue, and piety, i.e., eruditio, virtus, pietas. Using other words, according to Comenius in Didaktika, these are: '… Th ree wells, from which all the springs of most perfect delights fl ow fully. ' 18 Th ese three wells -education, virtue, and piety, which bring man inner order, are to fulfi ll individuals and schools, all people, in everything that is essential for life. Later, in Pampaedia, in the fourth part of Obecná porada o nápravě věcí lidských (Consultatio de rerum humanarum emendatione catholica, 1644-1670), 19 Comenius also called this delight deliciae, the light of the mind was hortus deliciarum (fi guratively speaking, it was the light of pleasure), 'the garden of delight, the garden of joy' . Th e fact that joy is connected with upbringing and education, and thus also with various requirements and principles, can be seen as early as in Comenius's Informatorium školy mateřské (1632). In this work, Comenius combines joy with love. Here, he advises parents to cheer children up by telling stories, singing, music: '... as a good mind is a key to health, and, according to Sirach's testimony, a happy heart is man's life; … Parents should also make sure that their children have their merriment and pleasure. ' 20 Th ey should play with them, sing, show pictures, and support their own activities in every possible way, as it all strengthens the health of children. 'Th e more they know, the more they like it. ' 21 In Škola dětství (Schola infantiae) 22  Human nature is adapted in such a way that the senses, reason, will, and all abilities are constantly looking for an adequate diet. If you deny it, they grieve, weaken, wither, die. If you add nutritions wisely, they will rejoice, be refreshed, come to life, and will cope with everything ... 26 (In the Latin version, Comenius used the verbs gaudere and laetari).

Th e Joy of God in Comenius's Conception
Most oft en, however, John Amos Comenius connected joy with good, truth, freedom, unity, love. Comenius's metaphorical conception of light as several types of joyful enlightenment (physical, mental, and spiritual) was related to corrective activity, truth, love, and the hope of a universal correction of everyone-everything-throughout. Our intention is to show humanity, with God's grace, where all its good lies. We want to point out how we have crossed its boundaries and wandered in innumerable ways in vain. Finally, we want to indicate reliable, comfortable, and joyful paths to ancient simplicity, peace, and happiness. 28 Comenius retains hope. It is evident, for example, in chapter VIII, § 13. Here he writes that 'all nature avoids pain and is pleased with love. So there is hope that when the reliable foundations of true unity (and therefore truth and peace) are discovered, everyone will jump with joy and willingly exchange mutual hatred for mutual love. ' 29 Also in Panaugia, Comenius connected joy (gaudere) with a desire to make things right. In Pansofi a (Pansophia), Svět možný (Mundus possibilis), the importance of the light of the mind (hortus deliciarum) for understanding the things one encounters in the world is emphasised, and one should rejoice in it (gaudere).
Did you see the light of your mind in you? Did you know that no books have inserted it nor have I poured it into you? It is fl owing into you from your mind. Do you feel joy? Rejoice, for you shall have an open spring within you. It will fl ow within you constantly without slackening. It will accompany you throughout your life... 30 In Pansofi a, Svět materiální (Mundus materialis), in chapter VII (which deals with man, the user of the world around us) Comenius connected the perception of a beautiful, nice, necessary thing with good, a general love for that thing which includes pleasure (oblectatio) and desire, the eff ort to obtain it. If there are means, there is hope and joy (laetitia) and stimuli for further zeal. Th e attainment evokes a deeper joy (gaudium) coming from the fact that we have grasped it, delight (voluptas), spilling delight of the spirit (jucunditas animi). 31 In Panorthosia, 32 in the chapter on the correction of schools (chapter XXIV), Comenius combines the joy of education with the joy of God. Here he proposes a 'garden of delight' ('paradisus deliciarum') as part of the reform of secular administration. Chapter XXV mentions the joy (gaudium perfectum) of preparing people for the kingdom of heaven. Th is would be the task of a special university, to which a new philosophy, a new politics, and a new theology will contribute as part of the general reform. However, Comenius's greatest and most frequently expressed joy was the joy of God, the joy of pious people, the joy associated with the hope of salvation. In Historie o těžkých protivenstvích, this joy is described in chapter LX. It is about 27 Czech martyrs, executed in 1621 in Prague by order of Emperor Ferdinand II: '… Th e sorrow of this hour will pass away and new, cordial, and eternal joy will come. ' 33 Th e joy associated with God, the giver of joy, oft en appears in Comenius's rewording of the Psalms called Žalmy (e.g., in IX, XIX, XX, XXI, XXVIII, XXXII, XXXV, XLI, XLIII). We can mention, for example, the conclusion of Psalm XXXII: 'Let all the godly ones rejoice in the LORD. Anyone with a sincere 34 heart, rejoice in the Lord. ' 35 Or there is Psalm IX: 'O my righteous judge, you made the true judgment over me: joy, joy which is in you is brought by my heart to me. ' 36 As early as in Přemyšlování o dokonalosti křesťan ské (1622), 37 the chosen soul piously meditates and cannot do anything else than weep with joy, as it would like to repay God with love for his good, especially for inner peace and joy in the spirit. Christian perfection includes love, tolerance, goodness, modesty, etc., and merriment and perfect comfort, joy in spirit, in heaven of delight. In the second part of Labyrint (that is, Ráj srdce), the inner light of pious Christians, the freedom of hearts devoted to God, love for God and neighbour brings joy, even delight, joy greater than the joy of the world; life is a joyous exulting in God, culminating in the delight of salvation. Similarly, in Svět duchovní (Mundus spiritualis) in Pansofi a, 38 where the path to perfection needed for the reform of everything -in everything -throughout is described. For example, in chapter I, there is life in God as love and joy (amor et gaudium), or in chapter VII, joy (gaudium) of Christ the Redeemer is one of the seven stages of rebirth. In the fi nal past of Pansofi a, in chapter X, Jubileus jubileorum, 39 the sign of the pinnacle of human wisdom is the lasting light of the mind, the lasting joyful heart (svavitates cordis perpetuae), the pinnacle of happiness (felicitatis culmen). Th is -the praise of the Lord, a life consecrated in the joy of God and devoted to God, a lasting happy heart as the pinnacle of happiness -was the driving force of all of Comenius's action. He writes about this at the beginning of his professional and life career in the Th eatrum universitatis rerum (1616-1618). Here, he also foreshadows his whole future life with words in which he addresses God in a somewhat unusual and strange way with youthful astonishment: '...wonderful God, my Lord. In your name I will begin with my work, do my work and fi nish it, and I will give myself and all my work to You, it will be under your protection... ' 40 Th ese words express the greatest impulse of Comenius's life, his activities, and his ability to rise again from his falls to peak activity. To the question of how Comenius overcame his pain and sorrow, his suff ering, the almost dead soul that he carried (aft er all the wounds of his life) in his living body, we can answer using the words of the Old Testament. Th ese are the words of Prophet Nehemiah, whom Comenius liked to quote: '...for the joy of the Lord is your strength' (Neh 8:10). John Amos Comenius not only wrote about this power of joy, but he really felt and lived it in his life. It was his hortus deliciarum.
Aft er all, in the already mentioned Labyrint světa a ráj srdce, Comenius speaks as follows: Surely in the world there I have seen blindness and darkness, but I have seen this bright light as well; I have seen deception, but also truth; I have seen disorder, but also noble order itself; I have seen rush, but also peace; I have seen worries, but also joy; I have seen defi ciency, but also abundance; I have seen slavery, but also freedom; I have seen diffi culties, but also ease; I have seen tragic incidents, but also safeness... 43

Conclusion
Th e concept of Comenius's joy is an unexplored area in the existing literature related to his work and life. At the same time, it is clear that this concept, and especially the concrete experience of that joy, was not completely foreign to him. Despite the hardships of life and the pain he experienced, he was a man of unrelenting faith, fi lled with the joy of God. Th is joy gave him a life force and enabled him to overcome all the hard and bad things which he encountered in life. However, as can be seen from this article, Comenius's conception of joy does not apply to God himself only. Comenius himself perceives it from various possible angles considering the emotional states of man himself. It defi nes joy by expressions such as laetitia, gaudium, hilaritas, voluptas, deliciae, which diff er from each other not only in possible expression, but also in the depth of experience. In his work (for example, in Dveře jazyků odevřené, Pansofi cký slovník, but even elsewhere), he defi nes the individual concept of joy. In Didaktika and in Didactica magna he understands joy as the triple delight of the soulvoluptas animae. It is then distinguished on the basis of its origin (source) as the joy of things (external), joy emanating from ourselves (that can be called inner joy, joy of the soul), and ultimate joy coming from God himself. In Comenius's conception we also fi nd the joy that relates to education, to knowledge as such. Th is joy is associated with virtue and piety (eruditio, virtus, pietas). Th ese three bring us directly a garden of delight, a garden of joy, Comenius's hortus deliciarum. We see this not only in Obecná porada o nápravě věcí lidských, but also, for example, in Informatorium školy mateřské, in Th eatrum univesitatis rerum, in didactics, in Gentis Felicitas, and elsewhere. Th e ultimate joy for Comenius is the joy of God himself. In the sections of Obecná porada o nápravě věcí lidských, in Panegersia and Panaugia, this joy is the path to original simplicity, peace, and happiness. Th e joy of God is connected here with love as such; it helps to reach the light of the mind, the garden of delight, the already mentioned hortus deliciarum, and the delight of the spirit (jucunditas animi). Th e pinnacle of human wisdom is the permanent light of the mind, which is inextricably linked with the permanently happy heart (svavitates cordis perpetue). With this constantly happy heart, we are to accept everything that we encounter in our lives. Using the words of Comenius from the beginning of this article: one should stand in one's lot until the end of one's life. In my article, I wanted to recall and bring this almost 'forgotten' but, at the same time, so important and inspiring message from the work and thinking of J. A. Comenius.


Secondary Education and COVID-19

Definition: Secondary education is the second stage of formal education and traditionally begins after primary school, usually about age 11 to 13. The COVID-19 pandemic caused immeasurable changes to the educational system which inevitably greatly impacted secondary education. The current entry describes the changes in secondary education imposed by the pandemic and explores the accompanying challenges.

Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented crisis. What sets it apart from past health and other crises is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, because of its high transmissibility, spread worldwide within a short period of time. As of 15 November 2021, there have been over 249 million positive cases and over 5 million deaths documented [1]. As COVID-19 was a novel virus, aside from its transmissibility, nothing was yet known regarding its effects and containment. Therefore, efforts focused on how past epidemics were combated, with social and physical distancing identified as the most successful measure [2,3]. Consequently, countries primarily employed this measure in school settings as a way to prevent the spread [4]. This ultimately led to the complete or partial closing of schools. Contrary to previous outbreaks, where education was disrupted for a short time, COVID-19 was the only pandemic that led to a large-scale and prolonged disruption of education [5].
It is worth noting how education was affected in previous crises. For instance, during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in China in 2003, some governments chose to proceed with school closures as a way to prevent the disease from spreading. SARS's symptoms were similar to those of COVID-19, and it was identified as the first serious transmissible disease to occur in the 21st century [6]. School closures ranged from three weeks in Singapore [7] to over two months in China [8]. Other prevention measures that were applied included class cancellation strategies among upper secondary school and college students [9], mandatory temperature monitoring in primary and lower secondary schools [10,11], and suspension of other child-related activities, such as sports, to prevent large gatherings that could spread the disease [7].
In general, it was found that school closure as a prevention technique did not make a notable difference in the SARS outbreak [12]. This was the case mainly due to the low transmission rate that was reported in educational settings and the low occurrence of the infection in children [8,12,13]. The transmission of SARS among children could be accounted for primarily by households, acquaintances, and relations outside of the school setting [12]. A challenge that occurred from school closures for working parents, especially for those that were healthcare workers, was the additional childcare needs that emerged and the lack of sufficient resources to satisfy them [14,15]. not imply cessation of education, but rather the transformation and adaptation of the mode of teaching.
It appears that educational institutes and systems were unprepared to handle a disaster of such an extent [5]. Therefore, the unfamiliar territory in the educational context amplified the concerns of schools, educators, and students, who were called to swiftly adapt to a new reality [39].

Education in the Era of COVID-19
COVID-19 has been a global crisis, forcing countries to rethink how education could be accomplished despite school closures. Though the use of digital technology was not new in education, since the outbreak, it has become the primary modality. This was to ensure the continuity of education while containing the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The following section explores how education was modified during the period of the pandemic.

Distance Education
Distance education received great popularity from many countries during school closures, as a shift from face-to-face to remote teaching was emerging. Alternative education arrangements included online teaching through digital platforms, launching educational radio or television programs, and delivering learning packages with printed resources such as worksheets and textbooks to students [5]. The digital platforms enabled teachers to educate in actual time through virtual meeting programs and provided students with learning materials to utilize in their own time [40]. Furthermore, some countries were able to use pre-existing remote learning platforms that allowed students to revise the subject content from the beginning of the year by providing digital books and worksheets, and online activities [41]. Other countries such as Mexico further supported their students using television programs [42]. Nevertheless, digital platforms were most popular in developed countries, whereas other means of remote learning, such as radio and television broadcasts, were employed by developing countries.

Hybrid Learning Model
Many governments chose to re-open schools once the pandemic was in recession and the transmission risk decreased. During such times, schools further developed the hybrid approach to learning, also known as "blended learning". The hybrid method is a combination of conventional classroom-based instruction and online education [43]. In the hybrid educational approach, teachers make use of technologies designed for online teaching to enhance or substitute sections of the classroom-based instruction [44]. The instruction is provided through online platforms and in classroom, intermittently, providing the advantage of personalized teaching with the flexibility and ease of online formats [44][45][46]. Moreover, it offers possibilities that facilitate creativity, critical thinking, and skill development [47,48]. Even though there is limited research focusing on the effect of hybrid learning on secondary school students, it has been found to be an effective instructional method [45,49,50]. Whether used independently or combined with other teaching methods, it results in elevated student achievement [51].
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, hybrid education was utilized and developed further due to necessity. It was applied to avoid the congregation of large groups of students, lowering the risk of virus transmission while maintaining interactive lessons. The hybrid method combines synchronous learning such as in-person meetings through online platforms, such as Microsoft Teams, and asynchronous learning, such as assignments, pre-recorded lessons, and group projects [52]. It gives teachers the chance to provide students with reading material and enriched resources. It also affords students the freedom and flexibility to study the available material independently, and to conduct online class discussions through discussion boards [53].
The rotation model of hybrid learning has also been used during the pandemic in secondary schools. In this type of learning, teachers organized student attendance in alternation with distance learning, with different groups of students receiving classroombased instruction on certain days of the week, and online schooling the rest [54]. In general, hybrid learning has been found to be a suitable educational approach during the COVID-19 pandemic [55]. Recent studies aimed to determine the effectiveness of the instructional modalities, with findings suggesting that the hybrid and classroom-based models offer more instructional time, cover more material, and facilitate better student achievement, as opposed to distance learning [56].
A possible disadvantage of hybrid learning is the reduced in-class instruction time, which ultimately disrupts the conventional way of teaching [40]. Validation, accreditation, and recognition of skills and knowledge produced through hybrid learning need to be integrated for hybrid education to be considered as effective and efficient as conventional modes of learning [57].

Synchronous or Asynchronous Learning
With remote education, student learning can take place in a synchronous or asynchronous setting. There is evidence of both types being used in secondary education since the start of the pandemic [58][59][60]. Learning in a synchronous setting involves real-time student-teacher communication. This allows for an immediate response, such as real-time lessons that take place through virtual meeting platforms and discussions in online forums, which is an advantage compared to purely online courses. A possible disadvantage of synchronous learning is its lack of flexibility [34]. On the other hand, a possible disadvantage of an asynchronous setting is that instantaneous feedback is not available, and student learning occurs independently, such as by utilizing uploaded learning material or learning through educational television or radio programs [61]. A benefit of asynchronous learning is convenience, where students can learn in a flexible manner and work at their own pace [34].

Student Assessment
Student assessment is a vital part of the educational system. It provides not only a great insight into students' progress but also feedback with regard to the teaching quality students receive, and the possible improvements that could be implemented. Assessment has also been found to impact students' motivation [62]. Because of the pandemic, the way students are assessed was impacted, with concerns raised about whether examinations are the appropriate method [63]. Currently, to our knowledge, three main approaches were used for assessing students in secondary education, namely, the cancellation of examinations, the suspension of examinations, or the transformation of examinations to an online format [64]. Moreover, a popular online learning evaluation method during the COVID-19 era was e-assessments (electronic assessments), whereby technology is used to deliver assessments and feedback through digital platforms [65].
Assessment methods have also been impacted in other ways. For instance, both in conventional and online assessments, some countries decreased the number of exams by excluding some subjects, while others reduced the learning content that students needed to cover for exams or altered the exam format by lowering the number of questions in the exam paper [64]. In addition, some schools switched to a reliable alternative to examinations [66], where students' learning was evaluated based solely on teacher assessment or teacher assessment combined with previous exam performance [64]. Lastly, there were countries which decided to assess secondary school students' learning based entirely on the feedback of homework and assignments that students completed in the current school year [67].

Challenges in Education during COVID-19
The sudden shift in in-person education to partly or fully remote education was challenging for teachers, students, and parents, as it required their swift adaptation. Educators were called to use alternative teaching methods that required the use of technological means, such as computers, laptops, phones, televisions, and radios, as well as digital expertise. This transitional phase has been described as a stressful period for a lot of educators [54,68]. Even though they coped with it and were able to transfer teaching to a digital form with their technological knowledge, this was not without its challenges [54]. The difficulties that arose involved the use of digital platforms, the communication with students, and the assessment and handling of students' reduced attention and understanding [54]. In this part of the paper, the challenges experienced in education are explored.

Digital Competence
Teachers' lack of digital skill and knowledge has been a main obstacle in the changes implemented in the educational system due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Information and communications technology (ICT) skills have become essential to teachers in order to cope with their new job requirements [40]. Teachers have been reporting a strong need for training in utilizing ICT for education, even before the pandemic [69]. The ICT skills in the educational setting include basic computer skills, knowledge regarding the use of computers to seek, access, and share information, and use of computers as a learning device [70]. During the COVID-19 outbreak, teachers have utilized ICT in remote learning mainly by uploading resources to online platforms [71]. There seemed to be a lack of digital knowledge among teachers, especially in education-related tools, that made the transition to technology-based remote teaching a great challenge for them [67,72].

Remote Education
The COVID-19 pandemic demanded shifting to remote or hybrid structures, with several challenges arising for students who were required to swiftly adjust to the educational changes. The first problem was students' limited skills in digital technology, since it was difficult for students who lacked those skills to be able to participate in online classes [5,73,74]. Another difficulty was the accessibility to digital devices. Without a digital device, participation in an online class for students was impractical. Another challenge was internet connectivity. On the one hand, internet access is vital for participating in online meetings, and on the other hand, good connectivity is essential for avoiding interruptions that inevitably disrupt the learning process. To prevent these challenges, students had to have access to high-speed internet connectivity and digital devices, which was a burden itself since it required financial investment [73].
Other reported challenges for students were the lack of understanding because of inadequate explanations offered by teachers, confusion with regard to the activities students were expected to complete due to the lack of teacher-student interaction, and the insufficient feedback provided by teachers. Consequently, elevated stress levels, as well as motivation decline, were experienced by students [41].

Increased Workload
In a short timeframe, the swift shift to alternative teaching methods burdened teachers with additional obligations for which they were not adequately prepared [5]. Consequently, educators' workload increased considerably [54]. The limited digital abilities of educators contributed substantially to the increased workload they reported [72]. Teachers' effort to deal with digital difficulties and simultaneously effectively educate and interact with students also led to increased stress and workloads [54].
Likewise, new challenges arose for teachers who utilized hybrid learning during this period. The demands of simultaneously interacting with classroom students and students who were virtually attending the class were an extra burden for teachers [54]. Studies showed that for educators, remote teaching caused decreased engagement with students, since they adopted a passive teaching approach with limited interaction, increased anxiety levels, and signs of burnout [68,71].

Academic Performance
From the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been reports of a decrease in educational engagement [68]. This could be explained by the influence of health-related and financial concerns (e.g., limited resources to cover educational needs) that led to low levels of motivation and increased levels of anxiety [5]. Since academic achievement has been repeatedly associated with student engagement [75], the observed educational disengagement during the COVID-19 pandemic is a matter of concern.
Moreover, learning losses and related declines in academic performance for secondary school students have been reported [76,77]. According to studies, the learning losses can be primarily attributed to the alternative educational methods implemented for remote learning, and the associated challenges [77]. For instance, in an analysis by Lichand and colleagues [77], it was found that learning losses could be attributed to remote learning, irrespective of other changes caused by the pandemic itself, such as the economic and health consequences. Note, however, that there are studies that provided alternate evidence with regard to students' academic performance. For example, learning loss was not observed in secondary school students in Belgium [78], and students' grades remained stable in Sweden [54]. There have also been reports that the use of alternative assessment methods increases students' scores and passing rates [64].
Furthermore, there have been reports that the physical closure of schools resulted in less time spent in learning, which affects performance and appears to lead to learning losses. For instance, Di Pietro and colleagues [79] reported the results of the School Barometer that examined the school situation in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, between the months of March and April 2020. This survey showed that students' weekly learning decreased between 4 and 8 h during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, compared to when schools were open, with one in five students reporting that they were studying less than 9 h per week.
Disasters amplify social inequalities [37], and as such, it is not a surprise that there have been reports of disparities during the pandemic [5,76]. There have been reports that pandemic-related challenges led to the expansion of the achievement gap between students from low-income, middle-income, and high-income households [80]. Nevertheless, there is also contradicting evidence reporting that no such differences can be observed [81], and that social disparities are greater for primary school students [82,83].

Daily Routines
Research suggests that having a daily routine can balance the adverse effects of stress exposure during periods of crisis [84][85][86]. The transformation of education due to the COVID-19 crisis greatly impacted the daily routines of students, teachers, and parents alike. Students had to adapt quickly to a new unstructured daily schedule that involved coping with the requirements of online/digital education, such as attending classes from home, studying from home, being evaluated from home, and interacting with classmates and teachers from home. Because of the many and sudden changes that took place, the structure of the week was lost, and students were responsible for finding ways to organize their own time schedule and allocate their time to studying, completing other responsibilities at home, playing, and performing other activities they enjoy.
Allocating their time to fit in online learning was particularly challenging, especially for primary and young secondary school students who have not fully developed selfmanagement and self-motivation skills [87]. The daily routines of secondary students were also affected by the lack of traditional invigilation/supervision. Learning and studying via online means were difficult since they demanded autonomous learning from students who had to reschedule their daily routines and find ways to learn and master self-control and independent work [88]. For teachers, online supervision was challenging and very different from the supervision in a physical classroom. Likewise, for parents, the difficulty stemmed from the combination of child supervision and teleworking [88].
Developing and implementing a regular routine are also very important for students' mental health. Research has shown that, especially during times that schools are closed, the disruption of daily routines might negatively impact adolescents' mental health [89]. The high amount of time students were spending at home influenced their normal sleeping, eating, and exercising patterns [90][91][92][93]. The WHO [94], as early as 18 March 2020, published guidelines to help the public deal with the psychological distress caused by the pandemic. One guideline was directed to the carers of children, denoting the importance of stay-athome routines and performing activities such as exercises, hobbies, and schoolwork for children who spent most of their time at home [94].
Routines also appear to be important for adolescents with prior mental health problems, risking a relapse for those who missed their regular school routines due to the closing of schools [95]. Interesting results were obtained from surveys conducted by the UK charity organization YoungMinds [93,[96][97][98] in different time periods during the pandemic (March 2020, summer 2020, autumn 2020, and February 2021). The organization examined adolescents and young adults aged between 13 and 25 with a history of mental health needs. The results showed that many participants considered that maintaining routines, such as taking part in exercise or dance classes, was a coping strategy for managing their mental health, something that was not possible during March 2020 due to the lockdown [93]. A similar finding was also observed in the surveys that followed, with the most recent one, in February 2021, showing that 45% of participants responded that having a routine was helpful during periods of lockdown [98]. Results from March 2020 and February 2021 [93,98] also showed that spending a lot of time at home, loss of routine, and isolation can have a negative impact on their mental health. Loss of routine was considered by some participants as a negative coping strategy, leading them to overthink self-harmful behaviors [93,98].
For adolescents, peer relationships are of great importance, since they provide emotional and social support [99][100][101]. Not engaging with friends, and in extra-curricular activities, leads some students to experience boredom [95]. Therefore, finding ways to reform their routine and to interact with their friends, especially during periods of lockdown, was very important. Research suggests that adolescents found ways to adapt by reconstructing their routines and incorporating video calls for communicating and spending time with their friends [102].
The normal daily routines of teachers and parents were also affected due to home confinement, with a significant increase in daily stressors [92,103]. Teachers had to transform a workplace in their house for teleworking, create new teaching routines to cope with online education, combine all these with household chores, and, for those with children, find ways to manage teaching, parenting, and caregiving simultaneously. Parents faced similar problems because of the many changes in their daily routines, such as home schooling, teleworking, and caregiving [92,103].

Career-Related Plans
The COVID-19 pandemic also seems to be affecting students' future career-related plans. During this period, there has been uncertainty regarding future education and occupation, which, in turn, has led to an increased demand for career guidance, especially for high school students [104,105]. The SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak caused changes in the job market, which, in turn, altered the attraction of various professions. This caused confusion in secondary school-age children with respect to their career orientation [105].
Moreover, secondary school students' engagement is found to predict enrollment in higher education institutes, with lower engagement being associated with a decreased possibility of registration [106]. As previously noted, during the COVID-19 pandemic, educational disengagement for secondary school students has been observed [68], and the school dropout risk has substantially risen [57,77]. This increase has been associated with remote learning methods, student disengagement, and financial and health-related concerns [57,77]. In general, in secondary school-age children, pessimism regarding their future career seems to prevail [107].

Socio-Economic Factors
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global economic crisis. Unemployment and poverty rates substantially increased, and economies endured declines with limited prospects of recovery in the subsequent years [108]. The closure of entire economic sectors and the enforcement of preventive measures, such as lockdowns, have brought about a drop in worldwide economic activity [108]. Consequently, this effect on the educational system has been noted at both a country-wide and an individual level.

Country/System Level
Due to the aforementioned economic crisis, schools' capacity to educate effectively, as well as students' ability to learn, has been restricted. Therefore, in most countries, governments have taken steps to support alternative education, such as distance learning, and COVID-19-related modifications to the educational system. Such support measures include financial support, provision of digital equipment, and staff acquisition and training [40]. For example, in the United States, an emergency fund was initiated to support primary and secondary schools [109]. In the United Kingdom, the government financed schools to cover COVID-19-associated costs, such as added cleaning costs, and free meal arrangements for students that could not attend [110]. The government in Italy provided schools with the necessary equipment, staff, and training to facilitate distance learning and lent digital devices to students from low-income families [111]. Lastly, the government in Estonia recruited services to distribute learning materials, such as worksheets and textbooks, to students' households during physical school closures [40].
In other countries whose resources are limited to provide such large-scale support, the majority of the population does not have access to technological devices (e.g., phones, computers) to deliver or receive education through online platforms. Therefore, in such cases, governments utilized different strategies, such as launching educational television and radio programs [108].

Individual Level
The catastrophe experienced by the global economy caused by the pandemic has also affected the population at an individual level. The increased unemployment and poverty rates are of concern to both parents and students [112]. Remote learning has proven to be a challenging education alternative for many families, especially those coming from low-income households [113][114][115]. In particular, a major challenge for students from lowincome families is the limited access they have to digital devices and connectivity [5,80], which, as stated earlier, are essential elements for remote education.
Moreover, studies indicate that there is an increase in parental worry regarding children's academic performance in families with a lower income [116]. In many cases, students need further instruction, and parents need to assist them with their academic obligations. This poses a challenge, especially for working parents with low levels of education [113].
Generally, it appears that students who come from low-income families have a higher need for additional education-related resources and instruction [116]. Consequently, during the pandemic, the inequality gap in educational opportunity and achievement has expanded [5,80].

Psychological Insights
Populations' mental health has been greatly affected because of the pandemic. Numerous studies documented increases in anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms in the general population since COVID-19 spread worldwide [117][118][119][120][121][122]. In line with prepandemic research, it appears that younger people and people with a history of mental health problems are those who are at greater risk [117,123]. It is well documented that periods of extreme situations, such as quarantine and social isolation, negatively impact people [124,125]. Therefore, it is not a surprise that during the pandemic, studies related social isolation to symptoms of depression and anxiety [124]. In addition, since the start of the outbreak, there have been increased cases of suicidal attempts [126,127], which appears to be associated with the limited social contact and feelings of loneliness the population is experiencing [128]. This section explores how the mental health of secondary school students, parents, and educators has been affected during the pandemic.

Mental Health of Students
Among those who were significantly impacted during the COVID-19 outbreak were primary school-age and secondary school-age children, who had to face great adjustments with regard to their learning. This had led to the development or enhancement of emotional difficulties, and a decrease in their overall well-being [117]. Specifically, an increase in anxiety and depression symptomatology has been found in secondary school-age children [101,[129][130][131]. This contributes to the decline noted in their school-related motivation and might explain the lower student engagement levels observed [68]. In addition, traumatic stress symptoms, as well as increased anger, have also been observed during the pandemic period [124]. There are many factors that could explain the emotional difficulties and the decrease in the well-being of students due to the closures and uncertainty surrounding the pandemic. Some attributable factors include self-isolation, limited social interactions and peer experiences, loss of daily routine, boredom, uncertainty for the future, economic concerns, disease-related fear, family stress, lack of physical activity, lack of resources, and disease-associated stigma [93,[95][96][97][98]117,124].
Importantly, more attention needs to be placed on student mental health problems, since they interfere with critical elements for academic success, such as memory, concentration, and motivation [132]. This is in accordance with pre-pandemic research reporting that anxiety and depression negatively impact student learning and academic performance [133], such as difficulty in concentrating and carrying out school-related activities [134]. The possible impact of the reported psychological problems arising since the start of the outbreak can already be seen from the documented motivation, engagement, and learning losses [68,76,77]. Lastly, mental health difficulties could also explain the increase in education losses which, in turn, might lead to lower enrollment in higher educational institutions.

Mental Health of Parents
The mental health of parents has also been affected during this period. Studies showed that life adjustments and COVID-related challenges led to anxiety and depression in parents [117,119,120]. Economic concerns, role variations, health and safety worries, and loss of daily routines have been found to be related to an increase in anxiety and fatigue levels [117,118,122]. With the introduction of alternative learning methods, parents had to adopt the role of supplementary teacher, which was found to be associated with elevated psychological distress and anxiety for parents of primary and secondary school students [116,135]. Furthermore, stressors such as financial concerns and social isolation impacted family relations [136], which increases the likelihood of child abuse [137]. Conflicts within the family appear to impact the mental health of parents. For instance, in a study that examined the mental health of parents of primary, secondary, and tertiary students in China, Wu et al. [116] found that compared to harmonious families, parents with family conflicts had higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. It is worth noting that maladaptive family functioning has also been found to be related to the development of psychological problems in secondary school-age children [138]. Lastly, in line with findings from previous pandemics, such as H1N1, pandemic-related stress experienced by parents was identified as a contributing factor to the increase in children's mental health problems [139,140]. Highly anxious parents may overestimate the danger of external factors and, as such, act with hypervigilance and overprotection in many cases. This, in turn, facilitates worry and anxious responses from their children [141].

Mental Health of Educators
Amongst the many changes that took place during the outbreak of the pandemic were work-related adjustments that educators had to make. With remote teaching being introduced, educators were forced to immediately adapt to the new system [5]. The alternative teaching methods placed extra pressure on educators, generated more work-related obligations, and increased their workload [54]. In concordance with previous findings, technology use and technical competence caused higher levels of stress in educators [54,72,142]. Importantly, studies found signs of burnout (e.g., fatigue) in educators [68,71,143], which, according to research, could be attributed to teleworking [144]. Accordingly, work-related stress during teleworking seems to be higher for educators with children [144]. Moreover, during this period, there have been indications of a decline in educators' quality of life [145], as well as signs of depressive symptoms [146]. Worth noting, however, is the finding that during distance education, there has been a decline in educators' anxiety that is related to classroom-based student management. These mental health difficulties experienced by educators are important as they influence educators' engagement in the classroom, due to the more passive teaching approach [68,71].

A Positive Viewpoint?
Emergencies can create a setting where modifications to practices are more easily obtained and are applied in an accelerated pace [34]. With the challenges and ambivalence surrounding the pandemic, it is often difficult to consider a positive effect of such situations. Nonetheless, research shows that some pandemic-related changes to education have proven to be beneficial in the long run regardless of socio-economic status. As reviewed before, countries, regardless of their socio-economic status, took initiatives to adapt to the physical school closures and continued to provide education to students [40,42,110,111]. The following are some of the positive effects that have been found.

Educational System Evolvement
The outbreak crisis made the value of schools and educators evident [5] and acted as an opportunity to reconsider the future of education [54]. Regardless of the initial hesitancy of educational organizations concerning the transition from conventional teaching methods to remote learning, many benefits were identified. These include overall flexibility as it is student centered, time and location flexibility, variety in material and lesson format [147], greater accessibility [148], improvement in communication and interaction between student and educator through the use of tools such as videoconferences, email, chats, and forums [149,150], and adapted lessons based on the learning objectives and the needs of the learner [151]. E-learning allows plan flexibility, and students can adopt their own pace of learning, which subsequently decreases school-related anxiety and facilitates skill development [73]. Accordingly, the pandemic positively impacted the attitudes of teachers and students regarding distance education and promoted the development of various approaches and skills [104].

Skill Development
In general, the educational challenges that emerged from physical school closures and alternative learning methods facilitated various skills in students and teachers. For instance, it has been documented that in the context of hybrid learning, student critical thinking flourished [53,73]. Moreover, education outside of the school environment offered the opportunity for independence to be developed in students, allowing self-reflection and focus outside of peer influence and pressure [152]. The unconventional educational methods enabled innovation and creativity in both educators and students [153], possibly due to the exploration of new learning methodologies in a different educational context [154]. Creativity is considered a vital ability in students [155] and has played a key role in managing the pandemic-related difficulties [156]. Lastly, research has shown that the greater the creativity demonstrated by students, the less anxiety they experienced [154].

Benefit to Relationships
Since the start of the pandemic, the nature of many relationships has changed. Part of this could be because it mobilized people to reconsider their life, to set priorities, and to recognize or re-evaluate their values. However, most of the changes can be attributed to the pandemic-related impacts, such as physical school closure, social isolation, and alternative educational practices. For example, the parent-child daily interaction time has increased since the start of the outbreak [157,158], which has provided the opportunity for quality face-to-face interaction [158]. The quality of the parent-child relationship is significant since it can act as a protective factor of emotional difficulties experienced by secondary school-age children during the pandemic [159]. Furthermore, the increased parental participation in the educational process (e.g., remote learning, aiding in arising learning challenges) can improve the parent-child relationship [5].
The collaboration between teachers and parents to ensure that students receive the best possible education with the new mode of teaching improved the parent-teacher relationship [28]. Moreover, teacher-student relationships were modified, since the health crisis pushed teachers towards an approach with more emphasis on student well-being [160]. For instance, an increase in teacher support and reassurance was documented during the virus outbreak [161]. Therefore, this could further facilitate student adjustment, well-being, and academic achievement [162,163]. According to Chamizo-Nieto and colleagues [163], it would be interesting to examine whether this will last in the post-COVID-19 period.

Concluding Remarks
The COVID-19 pandemic forced numerous changes to education. Those who were mostly impacted by these changes were educators and students, who had to quickly adapt to the new reality. The adaptation to remote formats of learning, physical school closures, and the implementation of social and physical distance measures restricted the regular learning process. Although technology is not new in educational settings, the pandemic forced learning to become fully digitalized. This caused more challenges for everyone involved in secondary education. This entry described the alterations that took place, the challenges that arose, and the impact on students', parents', and educators' mental health and ended with some positive outcomes that surfaced because of the new way of learning. The pandemic is not over yet, and therefore the educational system is still in constant alert. However, as compared to the start of the pandemic outbreak, the educational system is now more prepared to combat the challenges, but there are still unknown paths yet to be discovered.
Specifically, the main conclusions of this entry are the following: • The pandemic resulted in educational changes and disrupted the regular learning process.

•
The mode of teaching became primarily digitized/virtual to reduce the transmissibility of the virus which affected all parties involved (students, teachers, parents).
• Several challenges for students, teachers, and parents emerged. These included the use of digital platforms and digital competence, increased workload, the loss of daily routines, changes in career-related plans, and socio-economic impacts.

•
The new mode of learning impacted students', teachers', and parents' mental health. • Possible beneficial changes due to the pandemic, such as the evolvement of the educational system and skill development, were discussed. However, the long-term effects are still unknown. • The educational system adapted to the several challenges that arose due to the pandemic. However, since the pandemic is ongoing, any accompanying current and unforeseen challenges will need to be addressed, with special attention given to the impact on all parties involved (students, educators, and parents). Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.

Conflicts of Interest:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.