One of my passions since the semi-return to normal instruction in hopefully the receding wake of COVID, is to retain successful aspects of virtual instruction and then to include them in-person instruction. I’ve heard a lot of students and instructors say, “I never want to be on another Zoom call again.” Well, that’s not realistic. There were aspects of virtual instruction that facilitated learning. We need to keep those. 

In this episode, four powerful virtual tactics will be explored. Granted, each of these ideas is much older than the pandemic and had been utilized extensively in in-person instruction, but they were particularly well-suited to virtual instruction and they should absolutely be included now in face-to-face learning. Here are the four tactics:

• the use of a virtual interactive syllabus

• populating the virtual syllabus with highly interactive HyperDocs

• incorporating higher level thinking prompts
• utilizing landing pads where students can submit work and then collaborate

To help me explore these ideas, I conscripted Ethan Miller—a primary source. Ethan is an education major at Muskingum University. He’s been in a class I taught in-person and one that I taught virtually. He’s passionate about how much better in-person instruction is, but he’s coming around to virtual learning’s potential. He’s the perfect guest for this episode and he’s going to be a magnificent teacher. 

Ethan Miller emiller1@muskingum.edu

Episode Template

The Problem:

Many educators want to ditch any tactic that reminds them of virtual instruction and learning during COVID.

The Solution:

Evaluate what was successful during COVID instruction and then incorporate it into in-person instruction.

What you can do Tomorrow:

• Take an inventory of successful tactics that you employed during virtual instruction.
• Phase in at least one of these tactics next week.
• Explore creating an interactive syllabus with LucidChart.
• Explore creating a higher level thinking prompt via HyperDocs. 

During COVID we all had to improvise. Some of what we did was awesome. Let’s evolve as educators and incorporate some of these innovative ideas into our in-person instruction. 

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