When Covid-19 got its foothold in the United States, and schools left for spring break never to return, we had to scramble to switch to fully remote learning. Now that we're resurfacing from the pandemic, many stakeholders are pushing for remote learning to continue. There are advantages to remote learning, and it does need to be utilized. Still, there are situations where being physically together in the same room can offer exceptional learning opportunities.

Most of us will be going back to in-person learning in the fall, but we can’t go back to exactly how things were before the pandemic started. What are these lessons we have learned, and how do we use them when we see our students in person again?

Written online discussion forums are a great learning strategy for engaging students, for gathering assessment evidence, and to promote learning. Grounded in social learning theory, online discussion forums have such great potential. But too often they fall flat. Structuring them well from the start can set the stage for productive student discussions online.

Screencasting is a video of your computer screen with your voice as the audio. Screencasts serve as a communication tool for asynchronous online courses. They are easy to make and can increase instructor presence. Here are a few tips and tricks to improve your screencasting videos.

Teaching math online opens the door to teaching math as a concept rather than a set of skills. Use breakout groups included in web conferencing software to promote student interaction and critical thinking. One idea for a good discussion prompt is described with more to follow in the next blog post.