Community is an essential piece of your course. It builds student engagement, persistence, and increases the potential for student success. Developing student community might be a natural process in an on-campus classroom. Students can talk to each other before class starts, turn to their neighbor when working on class activities, and can check in with the instructor after the class is done. But what happens when some or all of your students are joining your class are online?
Building community in an online course is even more essential to student success. Online students can feel isolated or frustrated when there are no easy ways to connect with their instructor or their peers. But, creating a learning experience beyond watching videos or sitting in isolation necessitates purposeful planning in your course. Here are some ways to create community in your course:
Start From Day One
Think about the tone you want your class to take on. Your assignment prompts or announcements should reflect this tone and remain consistent throughout the semester.
Create a discussion board for students to introduce themselves and ask your students (maybe even require!) to participate. Giving your students a way to get to know their classmates is a simple way to make a big positive impact on your course’s community.
You can give them a few questions to answer such as:
- Simple questions like where they are joining the class from
- Casual questions like their favorite animal, sports team, anything!
- Encourage them to share interesting photos (pets, travel, their workspace).
- A question related to your course. For example, if you’re teaching a website development class you can ask them to share their favorite website and why.
Use Your Class Time for Community Building
Students build community when they have consistent opportunities to connect with each other. Design your course for these student-to-student moments to happen, especially during your class time when your students are together at the same time.
Here are some ways for you to weave community into your class time:
- Use Zoom breakout rooms to give your students a chance to talk to each other in smaller groups. This works great for both short and longer discussions or for working together on a problem.
- When you create breakout rooms, allow Zoom to automatically and randomly assign students to breakout rooms
If you've ever been in a large Zoom meeting, you know it's hard for conversation to organically flow and grow. Breakout rooms gives students the chance to talk and dive deeper into the class work. You can then have groups report back to the their classmates.
Plan Your Discussion Board on Canvas
Your course’s discussion board is a key space for your students to connect. Decide what kind of discussions that will be most beneficial to your course. Your discussion prompts and how you evaluate your students’ responses should reflect that decision.
| Topic-Driven | Social-Driven |
|
Provide specific conversation points and prompts that may relate to a reading or a lecture. Make sure to build in space for reflection or debate in your discussion prompts. Students should want to know what their classmates are thinking about! This type of discussion board works especially well for highlighting readings or helping your students focus on key parts of your course content. |
Your discussion board serves as a digital “water cooler” for your class. Your discussion prompts can be more general, such as asking them to post about the specific topic of the week. This type of discussion board works especially well if you want your students to connect the course with current events or their own projects or work. |
Harvard DCE has several discussion tools for use. You can see our discussion board options here and request them through the Course Site Requests form Instructional Technology here.
Show Students You're Listening
Community goes beyond your students talking to each other. It also means your students know that you know they’re there and that you are invested in their learning. This rings especially true in online courses, where it is easier for students to feel isolated. Here are some ways you can connect with your students in your course:
- Feedback Surveys: Ask for feedback regularly. Anonymous surveys in Canvas or Qualtrics surveys are a great way for you to check in on your students. We suggest asking simple, open-ended questions where students can identify what in the course has been most helpful and challenging.
- Set aside time to respond: If you have feedback surveys, record a video or save time in your class to respond to the survey responses. Check in regularly on discussion boards and mention particular posts that stood out to you or the class.
We're Here to Help!
We’re always here for one-one-one appointments and to help you master ways to use Canvas and Zoom to build meaningful course community. Here are more resources on our website for you:
- Learn more about Creating Real Time Connections here
- Sign up for a one-on-one appointment here
- Peruse our "Teaching Online" section for more tips on community and groupwork
- Sign up for a Zoom or Canvas training to familiarize yourself with breakout rooms and discussion boards