FOSTERING COMMUNITY ONLINE

Some ideas for fostering community online

  • One of the easiest ways to do this is discussion boards. You can do this by using the discussion forum feature on OpenLab or Blackboard (or Google Groups, or by starting a Facebook page) but another thing you can do is to have students comment on one another’s blog posts on OL or BB. Just get the discussion going!
  • Email blasts to students are another good way to keep in touch (used sparingly, of course). As one of our professors, Nadine Lavi, pointed out, if you send emails to the whole class showcasing a student’s work—it’s important to keep it really positive!
  • You can have one-on-one conferences (which can save you some commenting time in the long run) or, to save time, you can also meet with 3-4 students at a time to talk about their work in small groups. Please do this in lieu of full-class Zoom time to protect your own time and labor.
  • Start an Instagram page for your class. Most students will already have Instagram accounts, and this will allow you to have interactive chats, post short videos and just have visually compelling content that students will look at. This article has some other good ideas: https://www.weareteachers.com/10-surprising-ways-to-use-instagram-in-the-classroom-2/
  • Watch parties, or listen parties. People are doing a lot of binging of television these days. Can you come up with ways to have students, in small groups, discuss a particular show they’ve watched? Recommend a show? Write a TV review? Debate what should be the “shelter-in-place” anthem? Write a “shelter-in-place” song list? (and then write an article about it?) These things are both social and pedagogically useful.
  • Put students in small cohorts or learning groups that can meet on Zoom (up to 40 minute meetings are free) or via email, can discuss texts, can workshop drafts, can check up on each other, etc…
  • Any other ideas? Please let us know!

The Virtual Coffeehouse

This idea comes from a syllabus from the College of Staten Island called “Writing in a Time of Pandemic.”  Here is how the coffeehouse is described (as the professor would instruct students): 

Coffeehouses historically and sometimes even currently, function as a gathering place where people meet to share a cup of coffee and a visit.

(Embed cute clip from Friends – Central Perk. https://youtu.be/SkInrFgIWHs)

I’d like this particular discussion board forum to function as our virtual coffeehouse. This will help us keep in touch, know how everyone’s doing, share some thoughts, exchange a little conversation.

Here’s what we’ll do:

Every Sunday, I’ll post a question to start the conversation.

Then, between Monday and Wednesday: you all pop into the coffeehouse and write a few paragraphs responding. When you arrive, take some time to read what others have said, so you can truly join the conversation. As you write your post, feel free to reference your colleagues if you’d like. And, of course, If my question doesn’t speak to you, you can simply change the subject. That’s how conversations go, right?? So people who arrive in the coffeehouse later, can participate by pursuing the new thoughts that are emerging or the old thoughts inspired by the starting question.

Get it?

At the end of the week, you might find it interesting to revisit that week’s coffeehouse exchange to see where the conversation went after you left. You are welcome to write replies to people, too. I think that makes the conversation more real and it keeps us more connected in this time of weird distance learning and living.

  1. Post your first sponsoring question for the Coffeehouse.

Suggested assignment language:

For the remainder of the semester, we are an online community. And, given the current situation, it would be nice if we could be a real community and have some sense of genuine connection as we navigate these unprecedented waters. (Who could have ever imagined every state and city college cancelling all in-person classes????)

For this first post, please:

Reintroduce yourself and tell us what you’d like the rest of us to know or remember about you, now that we’re in distance learning mode. Let us know, too, what’s on your mind as we resume school amidst this weirdness. You can also add your photo or an emoji to your post so we feel more like three-dimensional people to each other. The goal here is to set the stage for more meaningful interactions in a trying time. Let’s be real people. We’re in this together.

  1. Post your own Introduction in response to the thread you’ve just started. Use your introduction to subtly model the kind of engagement you hope students will pursue with each other and you.

It is probably easiest to establish a new Coffeehouse forum each Sunday for the next Monday, rather than trying to run all the weekly threads within one Coffeehouse forum.

Here is a list of questions you can mine for future Virtual Coffeehouse conversation starters. (I’m sure you’ll eventually be making up your own based on what your students are already talking about and what is emerging in the news as time unfolds. )

  1. What thoughts have been going through your mind since this state of emergency was declared?
  2. Since school ceased meeting in real time, where are you? Are you mostly sheltering in place or are you out in the world? What’s your experience been like?
  3. Are you following news on COVID 19 closely? If so, what are some of your sources for info? What are some of the most interesting, hopeful, or concerning things you’ve head? If you are not following it much, how are you avoiding it? What DOES have your attention these days?
  4. What are some of the challenges you’re facing in “doing school” right now?
  5. What are some of the challenges you’re facing in “doing life” right now?
  6. Are you okay this week?
  7. How are you entertaining or soothing yourself while social distancing is in effect?
  8. What conversations in the news this week caught your attention? Why? Your thoughts?
  9. If you are mostly bound to home, what’s the oddest parts of that for you? If you are still going out in the world for work or social activities, what weird (or oddly normal!) things you are noticing?
  10. How do you think so many of us shifting to online schooling and remote working will affect our society in the long run?
  11. What are some of the things you are worrying about right now?