What makes a classroom a community?

“We must remember that what makes us human is, at the very end, to be among humans.” This is what Juan Carlos Oyanedel and Dario Paez wrote about the experience of the pandemic, in their study into social belonging and well-being. 

But belonging involves more than just being with others. While some think that being welcoming to all is the most important driver of belonging, employees cite “a place where people like me can succeed” and “being able to contribute my unique skills and talents” as the most important drivers in the workplace, according to research.

In the classroom, students feel that they belong when they can bring their own perspectives and strengths to discussions and projects. 

Community meetings

All Year 1 students at my institution take a behavioural foundation course, covering the habits, mindsets and wellness concepts that will best serve them on their academic journey. Community meetings are one of three components of the course. Students also complete online learning modules on the science of well-being. They take part in self-directed experiences, including sports skills classes, workshops and service activities. 

• Five ideas for fostering belonging and collaboration in the classroom
• How can we model empathy in the classroom?
• Work with students for an inclusive university culture

Having newly arrived at the university, students in my community meetings do not know each other. Community-building needs to start immediately. 

In our first meeting, using a Mentimeter word cloud, I ask students to develop norms for our gathering by suggesting adjectives that describe a positive community. They typically suggest words such as “friendly” and “harmonious”. This semester, “safe” and “empowering” were among several other interesting words. I explain that norms can be rules, but more often they are the informal understandings that direct the behaviour of members of a community. And when we know the norms of the community, we feel we belong. 

Next comes a game about identity. Students stand up. As statements appear on the screen, they choose a side of the room, depending on whether their answer is “yes” or “no”. There’s space in the middle for those whose response is “maybe”. Statements include: “I am a gamer”, “I am a woman” and “I am a man”. 

After the game, students reflect on what parts of their identity they were born with and what parts they chose. The learning point is that identity is a self-representation of your interests, relationships, social activity and more. We all have multiple identities and, in our community, you can choose to represent the most salient parts of yours.

Finally, we discuss identifying strengths. Before the next meeting, students complete the VIA character strengths survey, available free online here. Students come to the meeting ready to talk about their biggest strength. They are encouraged to do so in a creative way, responding to prompts such as: “If this strength was a colour, what colour would it be?”

The following meeting focuses on talking about our own strengths. Subsequent meetings move to appreciating other people’s strengths. Other themes addressed in meetings include trust, empathy and appreciating diversity. These gatherings develop self-awareness, but also the idea that there is strength in diversity, and that inclusive communities are built on this concept.

So what might happen on courses not about developing self-awareness and well-being?

Building community on a year 1 English course

During Covid and online learning, I started bringing similar activities into my year 1 English course. In the first lesson, I asked students how they could contribute to a positive and productive online learning community. They came up with interesting ways of supporting each other.

We discussed social-emotional learning. With the students’ agreement, I tweaked existing materials to incorporate discussion about themes such as resilience. For example, in a lesson about game changers, we spent time learning about the people behind the innovations and discussed the grit needed to achieve such success. 

In an end-of-semester survey, all said that it had been worth spending time on social-emotional learning, and that they felt a positive and productive learning community had been built. 

Since being back in the classroom, I have continued bringing similar activities into my lessons. On a course involving team projects, I asked students to take the character strengths survey. I then asked them to assign roles in their teams based on appreciation of each other’s strengths. These roles have recently included AI prompt writer, AI fact checker and monitor of ethical AI use. Students bring their strengths to these and other roles. 

These and similar community-building activities are possible on all courses. Giving just a little time to them can result in important outcomes. Learning communities like the ones described here facilitate the exchange of diverse perspectives, which can deepen understanding of complex concepts. But equally importantly, I hope you would agree, belonging to a community just feels human. 

Melissa Jane Megan is senior lecturer at the Center for Language Education at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

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