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StockRocket
Edutopia
How to Forge a Strong Community in an Online Classroom
With teachers and students separated, maintaining a sense of community
relies on some of the same practices they used in the classroom.
By Caitlin Krause
April 15, 2020
When I moved a large part of my curriculum online a decade ago, I had
to become more flexible and creative in my teaching. I used every tool
at my disposal to increase my connection with my students: We
live-shared in an online text editor called TitanPad, a predecessor of
Padlet. We also used blogs and responded to each other one-to-one, and
I encouraged rigorous journaling, debates, and questioning.
I changed grading to verbal feedback, conversations, and
self-assessments through reflections, and I flipped the majority of
readings and longer writing exercises into asynchronous modes. The
learning space bloomed—and not because of the tech. It bloomed because
of our mutual care and enthusiasm for the community connection.
I share five methods here that I have found useful for building or maintaining a strong sense of community.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
1. SECURE YOUR SAFETY BELT FIRST
I’ve seen many articles that put self-care at the end of a long list of
tips and considerations for educators. I’m putting it first because
it’s that essential. Learning is, after all, an experience where
quality matters. Your personal practices in self-care have a lasting
effect, whether they take the form of a mindfulness meditation, a few
moments to stretch, a reflective practice, or a few deep breaths in the
middle of a challenging day.
Don’t wait for the time to do this to emerge. Defend it as the first
priority for your health and well-being, and your virtual learning
space will also notice your greater capacity for responding to the
uncertainty that’s systemic right now.
2. INFUSE EXERCISES THAT INVOLVE CONNECTEDNESS
Your emphasis at this stage should be about connection over content.
It’s all about relational trust and establishing a virtual community
that is like a tree: deeply rooted, with a sense of groundedness, and
also flexible in its branches, so that you’re adapting to changing
conditions. I use this tree metaphor all the time, and also refer to it
as gravity (grounded and going deeper, like roots) and levity (lifting,
stretching, playful, curious, moving, like branches).
Intentionally begin each synchronous session online with a connection
exercise: doing a physical stretch together, playing music, taking a
collective three breaths. There are many grounding connection exercises
you can do. Then, use an icebreaker that is a storytelling exercise you
build in as a connection check-in. This primes the group for quality
sharing.
3. LET EVERYONE PLAY A ROLE
In my virtual teaching, each student had access to content
asynchronously. They each had online “journal spaces” to collect their
thoughts and reflect, and to share and build maps of ideas,
collaborating in a way that reduced the need for live meetings.
You can keep a flow without everyone working at the same time by
setting up groups in which everyone has a role of authority. My
students changed jobs at times so they could explore the different
roles. Some preferred to play the “lexicon builder,” collecting new
terms we encountered and finding out the etymology, definition, and
connotations. Others were “reference archivists,” collecting useful
related websites, readings, and sources. Others chose to be “curators”
who researched the sites and evaluated their validity and sources,
further placing them in context of the learning focus. Some preferred
to create mind maps of related terms and links to increase their
relevance, or artistic models and creations inspired by responses to
the learning.
You send a message when you set up learning this way: Everyone matters,
and everyone can contribute to creating and developing the learning
space.
4. EMBRACE QUESTIONS
The questions are often more important and revealing than the answers.
Have an online space design that encourages open wondering,
questioning, and going through processes of inquiry, research, and
documentation of discovery.
Meaningful learning isn’t structured around static knowns and
regurgitation of expected answers. Students will get excited about
being on an investigation journey with you, and while you, the mentor,
certainly play a role in illuminating considerations and resources,
students will be much more enthusiastic if they are creating combined
knowledge that is richer for its complexity.
This type of interaction builds social and emotional learning skills
and trust, which are complementary to this type of interactive,
insightful learning. Document the journey and encourage risk-taking and
daring along the way—show that you value each member’s curiosity-driven
contribution.
5. PRACTICE THE ART OF LISTENING
As a teacher, I knew that I could speak to the room, but could I listen
to what the room was communicating? And how could I do this in an
online space?
I found the answer in active listening, which is being intentionally
open and receptive to what is emerging in the present moment. It is a
mindfulness activity, increasing our awareness and focus on the speaker
and their purpose, instead of thinking about what we are about to say
next.
You can incorporate this into interactions with remote learners by
encouraging everyone to start each session by minimizing distractions
and putting away other devices. When there’s an exercise involving
group sharing, you can start with smaller breakout groups—where it’s
easier to make sure everyone contributes—or try partner sharing that
involves a “mirroring” activity, where students take turns listening to
the other’s story or reflection. The listener is silent while the
speaker shares, and at the end of a minute or two, reflects back the
key words that stood out, and some of what they heard, without
judgment. Then, the two students switch roles.
In larger groups, you can plan the order of sharing in advance and post
this order in the chat window of your remote learning conference space,
to make the transitions smooth. Along the way, keep encouraging
listening without judgment.
These approaches to build connection are all about trying to offer what
is needed in each evolving moment. I share these considerations with
the intention of increasing the well-being of virtual learning worlds,
which are wonderfully rich, diverse, creative spaces.
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