As you have adapted your teaching practices to remote, hybrid, mixed-mode, and HyFlex learning environments, many of you have placed a strong emphasis on helping your students feel connected as a learning community. Are you looking for new ideas about how to cultivate relationships in your class? This blog post highlights community-building strategies that were recommended by faculty who participated in Suffolk’s Spring 2021 Mixed Mode/HyFlex Course Design Institute. We invite you to share your ideas by commenting on this post.      

Set a warm, welcoming tone.

• Post a welcome announcement or send a welcome email written in an approachable tone. Include encouraging quotes from students who took your class in previous terms.  
• Record a video in which you introduce yourself to your students. Offer a glimpse of your life outside of the classroom, encouraging students to see you as a whole person.

Get to know each other.

• Ask students to respond to a survey with questions about who they are, their interests or goals, and their prior knowledge about the course topic. Ask whether they have reliable access to the technology they will need to use for your class. Include a final open-ended question, asking if there is anything they would like to ask or share with you. 
• Set aside some class time—especially early in the semester—for community-building activities that are not related to the course material, like fun icebreakers. Consider using Poll Everywhere to collect and display students’ responses to icebreaker questions.  
• Ask students to introduce themselves in a discussion forum in Blackboard. Consider asking them to include a photo or record a video introduction.  
• Add a banner to your Blackboard course, selecting an image that illustrates a major theme from the class or represents your personality or teaching approach.

Stay in touch.

• Send your students a weekly announcement. Share highlights from the last week—aiming for a warm, encouraging tone—and offer students a clear overview of what they can expect in the upcoming week.   
• Designate some class time for a check-in with your students about how they are doing. Set the tone for this conversation by sharing how you are doing.   
• Create an ungraded “virtual café” discussion forum in Blackboard as a space for the kinds of hallway conversations students may have enjoyed having before and after in-person class meetings. Invite them to use the forum to connect with each other around their shared interests or experiences.

Create channels for questions and feedback.

• Create an ungraded “question and answer” discussion forum in Blackboard. Ask students to post questions about the course that might be relevant to other students, and encourage them to help answer each other’s questions. If you subscribe to the discussion forum, you will receive an email any time a new question is posted, which can help you stay aware of students’ emerging questions and respond promptly, as needed.   
• Ask your students to share their perceptions of how the course is going, as well as their suggestions for making changes, by collecting midterm and end of semester feedback.  
• Encourage students to take advantage of your office hours by explaining what that time is for, in a warm and welcoming way. For example, let students know that you look forward to getting to know them one-on-one, learning how your course connects to their interests or goals, and responding to any questions or concerns they may have.   

Make space for collaborative learning.

• Use the breakout rooms feature in Zoom to facilitate small-group learning activities, like think-pair-shares.  
• Engage students in peer teaching by asking them to provide each other with feedback on early drafts of their work, like research papers or presentations.  
• To support students’ preparation for a test, ask them to work in small groups to review what they have learned and identify any questions that they would like you to answer before the test.   

Connect to students’ interests, experience, and expertise.

• Ask students to recommend relevant content for the course, like podcasts, videos, or articles. 
• Engage students in a discussion about how ideas from your course are connected to current events or their lived experiences. 
• At the end of the semester, ask students to write a letter to students who will take the class in future semesters, sharing their advice about how to make the most of their experience in your course.  

What community-building strategies are working in your classes? We invite you to share your ideas in the comments.