Since the earliest days of colleges experimenting with teaching over the internet, the goal has been to replicate as closely as possible the physical classroom experience. After all, in-person was seen as the gold standard, and the question was whether that could be faithfully reproduced online.
But since the COVID-19 pandemic forced instructors around the world to try online education, something unexpected has happened: Professors have found that there are some online teaching methods that work better than what can be done in the limits of a physical classroom. And now that campuses are back from pandemic restrictions, many instructors are trying to incorporate those remote practices into their in-person teaching.
