Building Classroom Community
Research has found that students’ feeling of belonging is important to many aspects of their academic performance. Building classroom community is an important strategy for developing students’ feelings of belonging and can ensure all students have opportunities to receive and provide help.
Tinto, V. (1987). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. University of Chicago Press. Chicago, IL.

 

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Building Classroom Community: In Class
Building Classroom Community: Out of Class

Look for common problems that arise in group work to determine which intervention is best.

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Action:
Common problems that arise in group work and relevant strategies:

  • One person in the group suggests ideas for how to tackle a problem, but others keep ignoring that person’s ideas.
    • Remind students that arriving at well-grounded idea requires that they take everyone’s proposal seriously by incorporating or offering critiques of the proposal. Time spent discussing the weaknesses of a proposal are a good use of time.
    • Join the group discussion and direct a question to this student. Even standing near the quiet student can get the other group members to redirect their attention.
  • One person in the group seems like they only want to get answers from the group and isn’t interested in actually learning.
    • Assign students roles in the groups and suggest that this person take the role of provocateur instead of notetaker. Or if 3 of 4 students are working at the board, ask the fourth to switch places with another at the board.
  • One person in a group is really bossy and takes over the direction of the group.
    • Assign students roles in the groups and suggest that this person take the role of notetaker.
    • Remind all the groups of the importance of equal participation as a way of showing respect.
  • One person in a group keeps saying they don’t like working in groups and keeps going off and doing things on their own.
    • Consider giving students time to collect their thoughts before joining the group.
    • Inquire outside of class what they dislike about group work; it might be that they have had bad past experiences and you can then think about how to design a positive group experience.
  • During a group discussion when people are supposed to share their ideas, one person has a hard time being concise and keeps rambling on and on and on and takes much more air time than everyone else.
    • Ask students to write a few bullet points about their thoughts before joining the group.
    • Ask all students to be aware of how long they are speaking within the group since it is important that everyone have a chance to express and react to ideas..
    • Consider setting time limits (e.g., no person should talk for more than one minute at a time)
  • Some students may expect themselves or are expected by others to contribute a lot to the task and others may be expected to contribute very little due to implicit and explicit biases and assumptions.
    • In advance of the group work, discuss how biases shape our expectations, how those might appear within groups, and what steps can be taken to avoid them.
    • Assign students roles in the groups and have them switch these roles.
  • Some students are physically apart or orienting their body away from the other students or the materials that the group is working with.
    • Ask the group to make space for everyone.
    • Join the group discussion and direct a question to this student. Even standing near the quiet student can get the other group members to redirect their attention.
    • Inquire outside of class how they are experiencing the group work so that you can then think about how to design a positive group experience.

    Reason:

    • These strategies attempt to address common group problems without assigning blame. An overly talkative student may be responding to group members who don’t speak up. A student who is withdrawn may be responding to negative group dynamics or bad past experiences from another class. Before employing these strategies, the first best step is to ask students outside of class about the reasons for their behavior.

Have students call on each other to encourage discussion rather than performance.

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Action:

  • Introduce a procedure for students to call on each other.
  • Share tips with your students about reducing bias in the classroom
  • Consider having name placards for students so that students can call on each other by name as detailed in a related tip.

Reason:

  • If you evaluate or comment on every student’s contribution it may make it difficult to sustain a discussion of the topic and may make the students think that you are the only audience for their comments.
  • Students may be more willing to make a contribution if it is a peer who is waiting to call on them.

Incentivize and facilitate study groups to normalize students learning from each other outside of class.

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Action:

  • Encourage students to form study groups. Providing just a few points, though inconsequential, for meeting in a study groups at least once nevertheless motivates some students to engage in this potentially beneficial practice.
  • Ask students to submit the names of the people who attended the study group, what they did during the group, and when they met. This can provide some accountability.
  • Give students recommendations for the study group including: how they should use their time, what size group they should meet in, and how long they should meet (perhaps just a minimum amount of time).

Reason:

  • Some, but not all students will already have a social network within the class within which they can create a study group. But likely all students would benefit from a study group.
  • By making it explicit what study groups should do to study, you can help students practice more rather than less effective methods. This can be domain specific and might not be something students already know.

Incentivize posting or answering questions online to extend the community outside of the classroom.

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Action:

  • Provide a tool for students to ask and answer questions. Include a link to this tool on the syllabus and explicitly encourage students to ask and answer questions. Sakai has a variety of resources such as forums, blogs, chat rooms, and wiki pages. Sakai also provides integration of Piazza, which encourages question asking and answering by allowing students to ask questions anonymously and to answer questions collaboratively in a wiki format. A recent study of Piazza use showed that women were more likely to answer questions anonymously.
  • Encourage students to ask and answer questions online by providing a few points of credit for engagement online during the semester.

Reason:

  • Students can reinforce their learning and support others. Providing an appropriate tool enables all students to have access to out-of-class help.

Specify appropriate and inappropriate forms of collaboration to help students identify opportunities to collaborate.

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Action:

  • Specify for students what collaborative behavior would be appropriate and inappropriate. Specific examples can be helpful for students to understand your expectations. For example:
    • some faculty permit, and even require, students work together to complete a homework assignment. While other faculty members require that students complete an assignment on their own.
    • in computer science, faculty specify whether or not students can help each other debug code.
    • some faculty require students to peer review each others’ paper drafts, highlighting the importance of giving credit where credit is due if they use another student’s idea.

Reason:

  • Appropriate and inappropriate forms of collaboration can vary widely between disciplines. Ensure that students understand what types of collaborative activity they can engage in. This can also be an opportunity to encourage students to collaborate outside of class.

Assign low-stakes group assignments early in the semester to ensure everyone knows at least one person in the class.

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Action:

  • Assign students to a low-stakes assignment (worth few points and not graded harshly) that requires them to discuss the course content with a peer outside of class.
  • The larger the number of students in the group, the more complicated it can be to structure the assignment in an effective way.

Reason:

  • This can help students who don’t already know anyone in the class get connected. If students know other people in the class they have more options of whom to reach to for support if and when they need it.

Arrange chairs in a circle to ensure all students can see the speaker.

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Action:

  • Once students have arranged the chairs in a circle ask students to look at the speaker during class discussion and ask speakers to look at students throughout the class rather than just at you.
  • If students are frequently only looking at you when they speak, remind them during a break in the discussion to direct their attention to everyone in the class. You can tell students that if they are looking only at you, you will look up at the ceiling or around the room to try to get them to look at their peers.

Reason:

  • You and other students might perceive students as disengaged if they are looking down or not looking at the speaker.
  • It is easier for students to have the opportunity to contribute if they can see each other.
  • Sometimes students see the instructor as the only audience for their comments. However, if the goal is to have a whole-class discussion then students attention needs to be directed at the whole class.

Break the class into smaller groups to allow students to have more opportunities to contribute.

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Action:

  • Rather than having a whole class discussion, break the class into groups small enough to allow each member a chance to contribute.
    • Create the groups in way that best serve the various goals of the group-work or overall course objectives. One can base the grouping on:
      • homogeneous ability (students with a similar amount of preparation or prior performance are put together)
      • heterogeneous ability (every group has at least one proficient
      • student, at least one struggling student, etc.)
      • student self-selection
      • “with those sitting near you”
      • randomly (using dice, cards, or last digit of student ID etc.).
    • Consider assigning different tasks to the different groups.
    • Consider assigning members within a group different roles and having those roles alternate within the group (e.g. one student could be a recorder of information, another responsible for sharing out the information, yet another to make sure the conversation stays focused, etc.).
    • Post the instructions for the group activity clearly.
    • Make the task group-worthy, by making the task:
      • open-ended and require complex problem solving.
      • have multiple entry points and multiple opportunities to show intellectual competence.
      • deal with discipline-based, intellectually important content.
      • require positive interdependence as well as individual accountability.
    • Don’t let students be idle. Prepare a sufficient number of quality tasks for the group to do.
    • If a group finishes its task early, approach the group to ask them to explain their ideas or results, which might lead them to discover they need to discuss further within their group.
    • Make clear the criteria for evaluating the group’s work.
    • Read a related tip on overcoming common problems that arise in group work.

Reason:

  • Students retain the information longer, get immediate feedback on their ideas, which clarifies and sharpens their thinking, have the opportunity to build on the ideas of their peers, learn to work on a team as well as independently from the instructor, learn how to disagree and resolve differences, delegate, and take responsibility for the learning of others, develop more self-confidence. Moreover, getting to know other students better creates opportunities for collaboration that extend outside of class.
  • Lou et al. (1996) found “low-ability students performed best in heterogeneous groups, medium-ability students performed best in homogeneous groups, and high-ability students performed equally well in either type of group.” This group also found (2000) that small-group instruction benefitted all students, regardless of their ability level.

Use think-pair-share to increase the frequency of interaction.

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Action:

  • Before asking students to make a contribution to a whole class discussion, ask them to think about the question and then discuss it briefly with a neighbor.
  • Consider moving throughout the classroom to listen to students’ discussion and answer any clarifying questions. This can help identify a pair that you’ll call on or have come to the board to write their thoughts and thus start the whole group discussion.
  • After the discussion you can call on a specific student or pair.
  • You can find more implementation details from wikipedia

Reason:

  • Giving students time to silently think about their answer can give them the time to be prepared to contribute.
  • Even if only a few students contribute to a whole class discussion, everyone in the class will have had the opportunity to articulate their thoughts to a peer.
  • Responding as a pair can take the pressure of responsibility off a single person and make it a shared enterprise.

Encourage students to use other students’ names to facilitate more of a sense of community.

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Action:

  • You can make name placards (aka tents) for the students or have them make their own. If students make the placards their names may be difficult to read. If you make them yourself, it can be time consuming and you’ll will need to find out first the name students want to be called. Companies (such as Avery) that sell tent cards will allow you to print names from a spreadsheet each on a separate piece of paper. Avery Example
  • You can have students keep their own name placard between classes or you can pass them out and collect them each class. If students keep their name placards, they might forget to bring them. If you keep students’ name placards, you can use passing them out each class as a way to practice students’ names and take attendance.
  • Multiple times during the course, ask students to say their names so that others in the class can learn to pronounce them. Explain that it is important to try to pronounce people’s names correctly, but that sometimes mistakes will happen. Encourage students to say something if anyone mispronounces their name or if they think a peer’s name is being mispronounced.

Reason:

  • Having students use other students’ names can make the classroom feel more familiar and make for a more coherent conversation because students can be explicit about the connection between their contribution and the contributions of others.