How do you foster classroom community?
A shared sense of community is vital to the success of today’s college student, whether measured by class enrollment, attendance, satisfaction, participation, performance, or overall graduation rates (Harris, 2001; McKinney, McKinney, Franiuk, & Schweitzer, 2006; Tebben, 1995). This phenomenon is especially evident among undergraduate students, first generation students, and historically underrepresented populations (e.g., impoverished students, undocumented citizens, racial/ethnic minorities, etc.; Asher & Skenes, 1993; Akerheilm, Berger, Hooker, & Wise, 1998; Terinzini, Springer, Yaeger, Pascarella, & Nora, 1996).
Simple Actions You Can Take
Think of the time you spend creating community as an investment—it will pay off later by making you more effective and in tune with what your students need. Plus, when your students are comfortable with you, and each other, they will be more likely to fully engage with whatever you are asking them to do.
Learning Student Names
This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.
Use Your Photo Roster
For each section you have, you will get a corresponding photo roster that has student names underneath their ID photos, which can be a huge help in getting names down. Learn how to access your photo rosters!
Communicate A Desire To Learn
Tell students you genuinely want to learn their names and pronouns—you’d be surprised at how much students appreciate the sentiment alone, regardless of if you actually call them the right name. Also, make sure to encourage students to correct you if you get their name wrong. This helps ensure you don’t keep calling someone the wrong name/pronunciation all semester.
Use Names Often
Make sure you, and your students, are all calling each other by the correct names and pronouns. The consistent repetition can really help cement students’ names in your mind.
This is probably the most important tip. You don’t need to spend hours making sure you’ve got students’ names memorized before the first class, just use their names as you interact with them and you will naturally pick them up. You just need to be intentional about it.
Implement Aids
It can be hugely helpful to use name aids such as having students make name tents, which let you see names every time you scan the room, or sit in the same seats for a while. The more visual or spatial cues you can pair with the names the better.
Icebreakers
Icebreakers are the easiest and quickest way to help groups of strangers come together and start feeling comfortable.
All good icebreakers share some key qualities:
- Accessible to everyone regardless of their background.
- Create new opportunities for communication.
- Help everyone loosen up and feel comfortable making mistakes.
Pro tips to keep in mind as you think about icebreakers:
- It’s important that you also participate in icebreakers. Your students will want to learn about you too. Plus, it can help them feel more comfortable coming to you when they have questions or need help down the road.
- Icebreakers are especially useful at the beginning of the semester, BUT they are just as important for sustaining the community you have developed. Don’t get sucked into the trap of thinking you don’t have time for a check-in or activity—creating a good learning environment is part of being an effective teacher!
Check out these no stress, easy prep icebreakers!
These icebreakers can be adapted for use in varied teaching contexts such as labs, discussion sections, and office hours.
This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.
A Simple Question
This is a quick and easy (almost zero planning required) icebreaker! At the beginning of class, have students do basic introductions including some of the following:
- Their name and pronouns (if comfortable)
- Their hometown
- What year they are
- What their major is (this works better for older students, younger ones will likely be undecided)
- Have they ever taken a class in this discipline before
Now, once you’ve selected some of the basics above, add in your unique question–something that has some personality to it or is directly related to topics you will cover in the course. Here are some examples:
- What do you consider your guilty pleasure?
- What is something you feel like you should have read/watched but haven’t yet?
- What is the best place to eat (locally) that you’ve found?
- Have you ever worked in a lab before?
- Do you have a memorable story about your name?
You can also get silly or a bit whimsical with your questions:
- If you were a vending machine what would you vend?
- Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?
- What is your dream pet (real or fantasy)?
Bottom line: This is an easy way to help people laugh and bond a bit. It is very low-stakes and requires no extra planning on your end besides picking your simple question!
The Snowball Effect
This is another icebreaker that is easy to facilitate and requires very prep time.
You pair some number of students together (let’s say two) and ask them to identify the most unique thing they have in common. This means they should go beyond simple commonalities like: we are both in this class, we both attend this university, we are both first years.
After you have given the pair some time to discuss, instruct each pair to find another pair (to create a group of four) and repeat the process. Keep going until: there is only one large group, the time allotted is up, or at any point before the first two items on this list. This is why it is called the snowball effect, you can keep creating larger and larger snowballs by combining groups.
To close the activity, have the students share what they think is the most unique commonality they all share.
For a fun twist, turn it into a competition, whichever group has the most unique thing in common wins!
One Word Go Round
This can work with a large or small group.
The idea is for each person to answer a prompt with one word. This is nice because it’s quicker than many other icebreakers! The trick is choosing a good prompt.
You can choose prompts to check in on how people are feeling, in general or about the course:
- Describe how you’re feeling today in one word
- You can be more specific here too: Choose one weather word to describe how you’re feeling today
- One a scale from 1 to 5, how ready are you for next week’s test?
You can also choose prompts to try to get people thinking about course content:
- In one word, what are you most excited about learning this semester?
- What is the hardest amino acid for you to remember?
You could also use something silly or fun, like:
- What animal best represents you?
- One city you would like to visit
What’s in Common Challenge
This works well if you have a session with some down time, such as if students have to wait for an incubation or take turns using equipment.
Have students work in groups of any size find an unusual or obscure thing they share. It can’t be that they are taking this class, or attend UW, or share a major! Tell them to think outside the box.
Have students write their commonalities on the board, and/or share with you while you are circulating.
This resource is adapted from the Fall 2023 L&S New TA Training Canvas Course, created by Danielle Clevenger, Lynne Prost, and Orion Risk. Learn more about the L&S TA Training and Support Team.