While Amy and I wait out the remaining few days of our 14-day quarantine since returning to Canada, it’s probably a good time to reflect on the past 18 months since the COVID-19 pandemic changed how we approach teaching and learning.

I’ve wondered lately what have we done in the past 18 months which can be built upon, expanded, and potentially brought forward into the classroom as we all prepare for face-to-face learning to come back again.

The Office memes and joking aside, there has been a lot to unpack over the past year and half of trying to understand and adapt to the pandemic so that our students can learn as effectively as possible.

A few things that come to mind that I hope to continue going forward:

• Prioritizing student and colleague wellness before academics
• Digital whiteboards with Doceri to archive each lesson for students
• Recording and uploading lessons for students to review at home asyncronously
• A more integrated approach to using technology to leverage learning
• Developing scaffolded activities to support independent learning

What I’d like to dig deeper and expand on:

• Developing video tutorials to support at-home learning
• Create more engaging Repl.it coding activities
• Providing more online opportunties for parents and stakeholders to be informed
• Grow my Professional Learning Network with Twitter and LinkedIn to continue learning from others
• Integrate more action-research invididually and as a science department as we develop our curriculum review cycle and new intiatives to improve on effective student learning

A silver linining to every cloud…
The pandemic has been challenging as we continue to oscillate between face-to-face, online, and blended learning environments. The silver lining to all of this is that as a profession we’ve been resilient, learning new skills, and hopefully using COVID-19 as an opportunity to Build Back Better our schools than we ever could have before.

Mike