UNCOVERING LEARNERS’ EXPERIENCES TO NEW NORMAL EDUCATION: IMPLICATIONS OF ASYNCHRONOUS INSTRUCTION IN GE 5: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY COURSE TEACHING

The new normal education policy in response to the pandemic crisis pushed institutions to shift from traditional face-to-face to asynchronous instruction that posed challenges particularly to science courses in higher education. The purpose of this study was to understand the learning experiences of the students and the implications of asynchronous teaching instruction in the Science, Technology, and Society course. This study utilized a convergent parallel mixed method of research employing descriptive-comparative and descriptive phenomenological research designs. There were 100 respondents for the quantitative part and 12 participants for the qualitative part. Based on the quantitative findings, the overall implementation of asynchronous instruction in the course was "excellent." Specifically, the level of implementation was "very satisfactory" in terms of Content and Course Evaluation, while "excellent" in terms of Instructional Design, Student Assessment, and Technology. There was no significant difference in the level of implementation of the course asynchronous instruction when analyzed by specialization. Moreover, based on the qualitative analysis, the learning experiences of students in asynchronous instruction were both positive and negative that implied two-way learning experiences. The general recommendation gleaned from the students was science, technology, and society asynchronous delivery improvement that covered teacher improvement, SIM improvement, and assessment tool improvement. The general recommendations of this study were improving asynchronous instruction delivery through teachers training proposals, modification of self-instructional materials, increasing the awareness and effective use of the varied assessment tools in sustaining the needs and interest of students in studying the course, creating a safe learning environment for the students, and conducting future researches to reveal significant factors which affect the learning experiences of students and the other points that the current researchers have not yet explored.  Article visualizations

Por los executores del ultimo testamento de D. Maria de Gurrea. En el processo de inventario de los bienes de los vezinos del Lugar de Pradilla. Iesus, Maria, Ioseph

Enc. perg.Tít. tomado de p. 1, y menc. de resp de final del texto.En p. 1 consta el año 1634.Sello del Instituto y provª. de Huesca. Biblioteca

Nutrient flux and budget in the Ebro estuary

The Ebro river flows to the Mediterranean coast of Spain. During its final stretch, the Ebro behaves in a similar way to a highly stratified estuary. This paper describes the transport of nutrients to the Ebro estuary, evaluates the general movement of nutrients in the estuarine region, using a mass balance approach, and estimates the amounts of nutrients discharged to the coastal environment. Given the strong saline stratification, this study only includes the surface layer that contains the continental freshwater. The annual nutrient budget for the Ebro estuary shows a net excess for nitrogen and phosphorus, while silicate almost attains equilibrium between addition and removal. There are several reasons for gains in nitrogen and phosphorous: a contribution of dissolved and particulate compounds in the freshwater (some of which are mineralized); a lower uptake of phytoplankton indicated by chlorophyll reduction in the estuary; an entrainment of the nutrient-rich upper part of the salt wedge; and, to a lesser extent, the impact of wastewater and agricultural water use. The biggest load discharged into the Mediterranean Sea by the Ebro is nitrogen, followed by silicate with over 10 000 tons of each deposited annually. Phosphorus is discharged at relatively low concentrations and with an annual load of about 200 t yr¿1.This project was funded by the European Union in the framework of the MAST-III research project: "Preparation and Integration of Analysis Tools towards Operational Forecast of Nutrients in Estuaries of European Rivers (PIONEER)", Reference No. MAS3-CT98-0170.Falco Giaccaglia, SL.; Niencheski, L.; Rodilla Alamá, M.; Romero Gil, I.; González Del Rio Rams, J.; Sierra, J.; Mösso, C. (2010). Nutrient flux and budget in the Ebro estuary. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science. 87(1):92-102. doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2009.12.020S9210287

Pharmacy Students’ Attitude and Future Career Choices: A survey of Four Public Schools of Pharmacy in Ethiopia

Pharmacy as a health profession has major responsibilities and  contributions in maintaining health of the society. Thus, pharmacists have to maintain professional behaviour and attitude that is worthy of therespect the public has for the profession. Studies on pharmacy students’ attitude and career choice are important to understand next generation pharmacists’ expectation so that policy makers would act accordingly. The objective of this study is to assess pharmacy students’ attitude and future career choice towards pharmacy profession in Ethiopia. A cross-sectional survey using self-administered questionnaire was conducted among 422 sampled pharmacy students in four public universities of Ethiopia, from April to May 2013. Ethical approval of the study was obtained from all schools included in the study and oral consent was secured from the participants. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics was generated and possible relationships between variables were tested using a chisquare test. From 415 study participants, 313 (75.4%) of them were males and 37.2% were within the age range of 20-21 years. Slightly more than half (51.1%) of the students claimed that they joined Pharmacy school by choice. The mean attitude score of the students towards pharmacy profession was 3.69±1.28 in a scale of 1-5. Nearly half (44%) of the students had a desire to work in hospital  pharmacy, while 35.1% of them had no preference related to specific area of practice. Though pharmacy was not their first choice for significant  number of students, at entry, they had positive attitude towards the  profession and were optimistic to practice in hospital pharmacy. Hence, mechanisms should be in place to advocate the profession for prospective students so that there would be informed decision to join the profession.Keywords: pharmacy students, attitude, career choice, Ethiopia, pharmacy schoo