Why Build Community? Emerging research on brain science tells us that trust and a sense belonging are crucial to helping students stretch themselves, persist through challenges, and perform their best. This is particularly true for students who have been marginalized or experienced educational injustice in some form. Here are some ideas to build human connection in your class.

Helping Students Feel Connected in Your Course - in any Modality

1. Be welcoming - Student anxieties peak in the first week of a course. Combat this with welcoming strategies.

Create a "getting started" section of your course that orients and welcomes students with items like a welcome letter, syllabus, intro discussion, course tour video, etc.
Communicate with students before the course even starts - a welcome email or short introductory video is great!
Create a student survey for students to express needs, goals and preferences.
Introduce yourself with a short video, note and/or image that helps students get to know you as a human being.

2. Inspire comfort and trust - Help students feel comfortable bringing their whole authentic selves to class, and start to build trust amongst classmates.

add icebreaker, getting-to-know-you, or check-in activities to your course (for example, in week one, in the first 5 minutes of a live class, or as a weekly extra credit in an asynchronous class).
Make sure to include student-to-student interactions in your course design
Give students a chance to connect what you're learning to their lived experiences in their assignments or activities
Ask for feedback periodically

3. Make the first move - Be proactive and reach students who may be struggling, or may not be familiar with the "rules" of college.

In an online course, send students regular emails or announcements helping them understand what is required that week.
Aggressively market your office hours - perhaps rebrand them ("How Can I Help You?" or "Come and Get Work Done" hours, etc.)
Proactively tell students about any accommodations you offer (flexible deadlines, extensions, retakes, etc.)
Consider offering more flexibility in assessments.

4. Be a cheerleader. "Students are more likely to lean in and apply themselves at a higher level when they know their instructor believes in them (Gay, 2000; Hammond, 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1994)" - Michelle Pacansky-Brock

Use conferences, surveys, and feedback to build relationships and learning partnerships with students that will help you push them to stretch and grow. Even in large classes, students can feel connected to instructors that are warm and encouraging.
Use wise feedback to combat bias and stereotype threat: 1) Communicate that your course has high standards AND 2) that you have faith that each student can meet them. 3) Last, offer specific, actionable steps for students to improve.
Reach out to students that may be disengaging. Send them an email communicating that it's not too late re-engage, and that you'll support them when they do.

“Instructors of humanized online courses recognize that students from non-majority groups are more likely to experience belongingness uncertainty (Walton & Cohen, 2007) and stereotype threat (Shapiro et al., 2016; Steele & Aronson, 1995). These phenomena disrupt the emotional conduits that steer cognition and, in turn, prevent students from performing at their best. Human connection allows students to feel safe by mitigating the psychological impact of stereotypes. With freed up cognitive resources (Vershelden, 2017), more students enter the Zone of Proximal Development where learning takes place (Vygotsky, 1978).” - Michelle Pacansky-Brock

Sources/Further Reading

How and Why to Humanize your Online Class - Well-sourced infographic with eight concrete strategies to create an equitable learning environment. Michelle Pacansky-Brock.
One big thing I’ll keep from my remote-redesigned courses this year (Hint: It’s got nothing to do with technology) (Links to an external site.) - Education researcher and cognitive scientist Dr. Michelle Miller writes about her decision to eliminate late-work penalties, replacing them with more flexible deadlines.
5 Ways to Connect with Students - SSU’s article with examples of techniques to try in your class.
Episode 28: Underprepared Students in the College Classroom: Working with "At Potential" Populations with Dr. Newton Miller (Links to an external site.) - podcast episode sharing foundational equity teaching practices. by Barbi Honeycutt, Ph.D. Lecture Breakers Podcast.
OneHE Community Building Activities . - Website with many activities (intros, getting to know you, student-to-student conversation structures, etc.)
Episode 44: How to Create a Culture of Connection in Your Synchronous and Asynchronous Online Courses with Chad Littlefield . by Barbi Honeycutt, Ph.D. Lecture Breakers Podcast.
Strategies for Improving Student Retention (Hanover Research) and How to improve student persistence and completion (Vincent Tito - Inside Higher Ed).

Tech to Build Community

Collaborative Documents - SSU article on using Google Suite to teach
Surveys - SSU article on they how and why of student surveys
Teaching with Groups Tips for helping students learn collaboratively, from breakout groups to long-term team projects. SSU Online Teaching Professional Development Resource.