Epicodus has decided to hold all its classes remotely in response to the coronavirus pandemic. While most of our students aren't in a high-risk demographic group for coronavirus, anybody can be a carrier of the virus, and we need to do our part to slow its spread.
While we're proponents of in-person classes, we've held several remote class sessions over the past two weeks and have come up with strong systems for creating community and facilitating collaboration. Our flipped classroom format has made the transition to remote work especially smooth: we've never been reliant on lectures, instead delivering our content online through learnhowtoprogram.com. We continue to practice pair programming, using Visual Studio Code's Live Share extension and Discord's voice channels. Teachers drop into pairs' voice channels to check in with them throughout the day. We also have multiple daily all-class meetings to bring our students together and make sure we're all working as part of the same community.
We'll follow health authorities' advice about when to return to our offices. Whether online or in-person, we're committed to creating an environment where all of our students can collaborate and learn together.