154 Virtual Instruction Spinoffs...Starring Ethan Miller

James Sturtevant Hacking Engagement

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.