A Practical and Effective Response to Teaching during the Pandemic

Abstract

In this article I share my experience of the emergency transition to remote teaching. I discuss the logistics and lessons learnt from transitioning my third-year economics course from in-person instruction to online instruction after the Covid-19 pandemic was declared. I ascribe my constructivist approach to teaching as a key factor which assisted in mitigating stress and allowed for greater malleability in the transition. In the process of the switch to remote teaching, I implemented a three-pronged approach which consisted of a flipped classroom model which facilitates an experiential learning environment with a greater recognition for and an application of kindness in pedagogy. Overall, the emergency transition, though it required a greater expenditure of time, hastened the restructuring of my teaching practice. The verbal feedback from students and the official course evaluation suggest that this approach has the capacity to provide a conducive environment for learning and enhance student experience. This three-pronged approach is suited for both online and in-person instruction. The intention is to continue to apply this approach to both online and in-person teaching. In so doing, it will facilitate the further validation of the efficacy of this approach in providing a conducive environment which engages and motivates student learning.

Keywords:

• Experiential learning
• kindness in pedagogy
• remote teaching
• active learning
• flipped classroom
• critical thinking
• technology
• learning environments
• classroom environment
• distance education
• assessment
• collaboration
• motivation

Disclosure statement

I have no conflicts of interest to disclose. I have received no financial support for the authorship, and/or publication of this article.