As an admitted skeptic of remote learning when ILI classes went online early in 2020, instructor Janelle Rivers admits she was wrong: “Instead of blank faces, I saw students connecting and collaborating to share information and solve problems together in breakout rooms, in common documents, and over their phones.”
And students felt the same way. As Janelle explains, during last winter a student burst out to the class that the two hours in Zoom were the highlight of her day. When asked why, she said, “You are my connection to the world outside of the walls of my house.” Others emphatically agreed, including Janelle who realized “that this was my favorite part of the day, too. Our community felt huge although our lives were small.”