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Tag: community

16 Community-Building Ice-Breakers for Zoom

several people's hands on a tree trunk

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Among the many objectives for the first day of class, for some teachers, is to create a sense of community. Many of the strategies used face-to-face may be adapted to the online environment. Here are some ice-breakers that have worked in the past. They may be adapted to Zoom, too! These ideas work for seminars as well as larger courses (e.g. using breakout rooms). Two truths and a lie is a classic. Ask […]

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Social Reading Supports Student Success (e.g., Hypothesis)

screenshot of a hypothesis page

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Maintaining engagement and a sense of community is valuable no matter how strange and extenuated the conditions for teaching and learning. 24 UA courses used the new Hypothesis tool in Blackboard (found in your “build content” menu). Hypothesis allows teachers and learners to add a layer of commentary over PDF files and web pages. At UA in Fall 2020, 1004 students and 48 teachers made 11,863 annotations on 547 assignments. If you do […]

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Should Your Classes Be Like Fiefdoms or Fandoms?

castle

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Technically speaking, I am not a fan. Fans are found in fandoms, which are communities that generate a shared discourse on a fiction narrative. Fans make the narrative their own by inserting and adding their own narratives to the fiction. Fans avidly share their creations and enthusiastically evaluate each other’s work. Fan communities establish norms for how to go about generating their discourse, and each fan holds the others to those responsibilities. While […]

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Student Perspectives: Civility, Dialogue, and Inclusion

Lane McLelland, director of Crossroads Community Center, asked students how they wish to experience civility, inclusion, and dialogue in the classroom. Here’s what they had to say. Consider the classroom space “Simply rearranging the classroom space can astronomically enhance the civility and inclusivity of a classroom. Traditional classrooms tend to not only be intimidating but also offer a sort of isolation to students, which both discourages dialogue and relies on uncomfortable silence in order to achieve the goal of teacher-focused […]

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