Lessons learned teaching through a pandemic and looking forward to a post-COVID-19 classroom

Many educators have faced the challenge of teaching in a world with COVID-19. Not everyone has the same amount of difficulties to work through, but each of us has the pandemic's unspoken weight affecting our daily life and work. After teaching for over a year through the pandemic, several lessons have shaped my approach to this time of emergency remote teaching. Some adaptations made to course delivery will survive in a post-COVID classroom if not entirely intact, at least with a considerable influence from the current situation. The variety of teaching modalities that have emerged have shown the possibilities of how courses can be delivered. Although there are aspects of online courses which we may never wish to repeat post-COVID, some aspects of our current situation could be useful in the future. We can continue to use remote collaboration tools when being together in a room is not an absolute necessity. We can help our students develop collaborations using these same technologies. Forming positive relationships with students and supporting how students work with their classmates has never been more important than during the pandemic. We should continue to prioritize relationship-building in a post-COVID future.