Spaces of Intent: Shaping a Physical-Virtual Classroom for a Post-COVID World

Abstract:It almost goes without saying that we as teachers continue to find ourselves in a tumultuous moment that elides the dimensions of place and space: from a familiar, physical environment that permitted, and perhaps even encouraged, the creation of the classroom- as-stage, we were then thrust into a free-form space, more ambiguous but also exciting in how the classroom came to have potentialities for construction, expectations, creativity—by us and by our students. Now, as we sit in a nebulous "new normal," we ask ourselves if we turn back to the familiar and the comforting or if we are to press forward into a different, virtual-physical "scape" of education, identity, and meaning making.