Classes

Group fitness classes extended at Canalside, MLK Park through September | Health

By Shelton Muro 1 month ago



Group fitness classes extended at Canalside

The coronavirus pandemic has slimmed down the free Fitness at Canalside group classes this year. Participants must register, physically distance and wear masks until they settle into their space to participate. 



Photo courtesy of BCBS of WNY


BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York, forced to start its outdoor group fitness classes late this summer because of the coronavirus pandemic, will continue them through September.

“It’s important to us to provide our neighbors with options to enhance their health and well-being,” Julie R. Snyder, chief marketing and communications officer with the health insurer, said while making the announcement Thursday.

Classes at Canalside and Martin Luther King Jr. Park typically end on Labor Day weekend. They typically start after Memorial Day.

This year has been anything but typical.

More than 12,500 people in the region have so far tested positive for the coronavirus, thousands got sick and more than 860 died.

Measures

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Top Online Fitness Classes And Courses To Help You Lose Weight In 2020

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

Staying healthy is important, and is something we should all be thinking about even more so with this pandemic looming all over us. However, the pandemic can also make it tricky for us to lose weight and stay healthy, seeing as we’re all currently stuck inside our homes. 

As such, here are some of the best online resources that can help you achieve your fitness goals this 2020: 

1. FYT Personal Training

FYT FYT Photo: https://findyourtrainer.com/

Let’s be honest. Working out isn’t easy, especially now that most of us are still stuck inside our homes. Thankfully, FYT Personal Training is here to take your home workouts to the next level by providing you with actual health and fitness personal trainers who know what your goals are, and will help you achieve them.

Signing up is easy, and only requires you to take the FYT quiz, match with a personal trainer that

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How to Succeed in Hybrid, Online Medical School Classes

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

Beginning your first year of medical school is daunting. Beginning your first year of med school in a pandemic, faced with varying degrees of remote learning, is even more daunting.

By and large, medical schools have made significant adjustments to their first-year curriculums to accommodate the specific challenges of social distancing in the classroom. Some schools have opted to go entirely online for first-year students. Others are employing a hybrid model with both online and in-person sessions.

Whether you are coming to med school right out of your undergraduate years with a semester of distance learning under your belt or returning to the classroom after time away, figuring out how to adapt to the demands of med school in an upside-down learning environment is crucial for success this fall. Here are some tips for first-year med students when adjusting to distance learning.

[Read: What a First-Year Medical School Student

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How to Navigate Online College Classes as a Student With Disabilities

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

As the fall semester begins and students head back to class, many are doing so virtually. Colleges are taking coronavirus prevention precautions, with hundreds opting for fully or partially online classes.

But what does the shift to online classes mean for students with disabilities?

To get a sense of what lies ahead, it may be useful to look back at the spring semester, when campuses closed and classes were suddenly shifted online, forcing students with disabilities to make quick adjustments.

Lessons Learned From the Spring Semester Online

One advantage that college officials have to plan for the fall is the ability to look back on the spring of COVID-19.

“Accommodations that had been approved for (face-to-face) communication were revisited, depending on the disabled students’ needs,” Mary Lee Vance, director of services for students with disabilities at California State University–Sacramento, wrote in an email.

While “not all students experienced a need

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UNC-Chapel Hill fall semester going online amid COVID-19 outbreaks, one week into classes

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday became the first major college to pivot to online classes after reopening in person. The reversal took one week.

Since the university started courses in person Aug. 10, it has reported at least four clusters of outbreaks of COVID-19 in student living spaces. Undergraduate courses will go remote Wednesday, and the university said it will reduce the density in its dorms.

UNC was one of the first and largest universities to bring students back to campus for in-person classes. It was under close scrutiny as a potential harbinger for other institutions planning on resuming face-to-face instruction this month or next.

“As much as we believe we have worked diligently to help create a healthy and safe campus living and learning environment, we believe the current data presents an untenable situation,” wrote the university’s chancellor, Kevin Guskiewicz, and its provost, Robert

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California colleges can reopen with a ton of restrictions, limited dorms, online classes

By Shelton Muro 3 months ago

USC and other California colleges and universities can reopen this fall with some in-person classes and limited dorm life, according to state guidance. <span class="copyright">(Perry C. Riddle / Los Angeles Times)</span>
USC and other California colleges and universities can reopen this fall with some in-person classes and limited dorm life, according to state guidance. (Perry C. Riddle / Los Angeles Times)

As California colleges and universities reopen this fall they must adhere to strict limits on in-person classes and greatly restrict dorm and campus life, state public health officials said Friday in long-awaited guidance for how campuses can operate amid a surge in COVID-19 cases.

The delay in state guidance had frustrated campuses, which have scrambled to create varying reopening plans without knowing what ultimately would be approved by county and state public health officials and how that would affect thousands of students just days from starting fall semester.

Most colleges, including the vast UC and Cal State systems, have already announced they were planning to start the fall with mostly online classes. The state’s strict rules prohibit indoor lectures for

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Schools seeking alternative to remote learning move classes outside

By Shelton Muro 3 months ago

DETROIT — With just days to go before the start of the new academic year, schools around the country are rushing to gather materials they never thought they would need: plexiglass dividers, piles of masks and internet hot spots to connect with students remotely.

And then there are schools that have an even more unusual list.

The Detroit Waldorf School in Michigan is buying carriage bolts, berry bushes and 8,000 square feet of cedar wood.

The San Francisco Unified School District has been busy gathering tree stumps.

And the Five Town Community School District in Maine is buying tents, yurts and enough all-weather snowsuits for each of its elementary school students.

These schools and districts are all laying the groundwork to move at least some instruction to outdoor classrooms. They’re making a bet that the lower risk of disease transmission in the open air, and the extra space outside for

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ICE bans international students from entering U.S. for online classes

By Shelton Muro 3 months ago

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on Friday that international students who plan to solely enroll in online classes this fall will be barred from entering the country. The announcement came as the U.S. topped 4 million coronavirus cases and as colleges and universities roll out plans to shift to online learning for the fall semester.

“Nonimmigrant students in new or initial status after March 9 will not be able to enter the U.S. to enroll in a U.S. school as a nonimmigrant student for the fall term to pursue a full course of study that is 100 percent online,” ICE said in its press release.

The department also mandated that designated school officials are not to provide new international students with an I-20 form that declares their legal student status. This guidance includes new international students who are outside of the U.S. and want to take online-only classes

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College Is More Than Classes

By Shelton Muro 3 months ago

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally restructured higher education for at least the next semester. Come fall, many college students are yet again facing a life off-campus, sitting in front of a screen. Despite the obvious differences between online and in-person education, colleges and universities are largely set on maintaining — if not raising — tuitions. This raises the question: Is an online education worth the same as one in person? It also raises a broader, more important question: What is the value of a college education?

Before I try to answer them, let me show my cards. I am a rising senior at Harvard, where only first-years and students with extraordinary circumstances will return to campus in the fall and only seniors will return in the spring. Harvard’s residential capacity has been topped at 40 percent, and all classes for all students — including those living on campus —

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Trump administration drops plan to deport international students in online-only classes

By Shelton Muro 3 months ago

Two of the country’s top universities won a major victory over the Trump administration on Tuesday, after the government agreed to halt its plan to deport international college students who only use online courses to study this fall.

The decision marks a stunning retreat for the Trump administration, which left schools and students reeling following a July 6 announcement that spurred lawsuits and condemnation from a growing list of states, schools, politicians, labor unions and tech sector giants. That included the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which announced it was “pleased that the Department of Homeland Security rescinded its ill-conceived policy regarding international students” following the decision.

Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sued both DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week, days after the government warned schools it would begin to reinstate tight restrictions on the number of online classes foreign students are allowed to take while

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