This article is part of a series on the pedagogy of effective online teaching and learning to engage students in active learning tasks. The general notions about students’ online learning experiences this year being meaningless and boring are not far off center. Social media are filled with memes of parents and students sitting through

The Dreaded Eighty Minutes Collins dreaded the next eighty minutes. He would have to stretch the ten-minute teacher monologue he had in his mind on today’s lesson to eighty minutes and hope none of his twenty or so static icons on his Google Meet class notice he was just stretching it. With occasional questions addressed

Susan’s Story Susan had always received ‘Highly Effective’ ratings on her routine teacher evaluations. She diligently followed the best practices and the principles of student engagement when preparing her lessons. The students always seemed engaged work learning when her principal or the vice principal stopped by. She was so preoccupied with keeping the fine balance