Classroom Community

Community is a unified group of individuals with something in common—be it place, culture, custom or all three. In a classroom, achieving such a community is integral to the educational project.

But a group of students in your class is not automatically a community just because they all share the same room for a certain number of hours in a day. Classroom community must be fostered and nurtured by the teacher and students alike. But how?

Using low and high technology can help. For examples, see “How to get started” below.

“Educators value the success of all students. Educators care for students and act in their best interests. Educators have a privileged position of power and trust. Educators are responsible for the physical and emotional safety of students. Educators respect and value the diversity in their classrooms, schools and communities, inclusive of First Nations, Inuit and Métis, and other worldviews and perspectives. Educators foster students’ positive personal identity, mental and physical well-being, social and personal responsibility, and intellectual development.” – BC Teacher’s Council

The above is the first of the nine professional standards for BC teachers and, arguably, the most important.

Technology (both analogue and digital) can help educators to foster the positive classroom community required for meaningful learning to take place.

Below are 3 ways using various technologies to help you get started in building classroom community.

Talk about yourself!

Each year, you begin with a new group of students. If you teach secondary, this is likely up to seven new groups of students! It helps to let them know who you are in an engaging way.

Low tech

Write a letter to the class and project it on the screen. Make sure this letter introduces yourself and your thoughts and feelings about the year and the class. Are you excited? Are you nervous? Both?! After you project it on the screen, read it to them. Once you have done so, get them to write you back. This is a fantastic way to get to know each individual and provides you with an opportunity to evaluate literacy skills. (This early formative assessment will support your planning!)

Medium Tech

Just as above, write an audio-visual letter or present a pechakuchu/ignite talk by creating a slide show with images and sounds to accompany your verbal introduction. Showing your students who you are, what you care about, and what you like goes a long way to begin to build connection.

Show and Tell

Low Tech

Show and Tell is not just for early years classes. Once you have introduced yourself to the class, get them to do the same by signing up for a show and tell time slot. Let them know that the stakes are low but that they must bring something (or email something to you) to project on the screen or put under the document camera. Once this visual is in place, the audience has something to focus on besides the speaker.

Medium Tech

Have each student or group of students (grouped by a common thread) create and present a slide show about themselves that consist only of image and sound. No reading slides allowed!

Using apps and games

Games like Kahoot! and Jeopardy are great for those times when your lesson is over and you just need something fun to fill the time. But what if they could be even more useful than this—less competitive and more socially aware.

Using Kahoot!’s survey mode, you can begin the year finding out what you and your students have in common. Like a “would you rather” questionnaire, the Kahoot! survey mode is a great way for a class to find connections with one another.

Jeopardy is a great app to use to get to know a place and a space. For instance, create a Jeopardy game that asks questions about the high school for new cohorts of students. Or, conversely, test the familiarity that a cohort of grade 7s have of their elementary school.

In addition, both Kahoot! and Jeopardy can be used to stimulate group discussion as the answers to each question become a natural place to begin.

Pair this kind of discussion with a backchannel like Poll Everywhere for reluctant speakers and you will have everyone covered.