Building Community in an Online Classroom

(Editor’s Note: This post was written by PBC Board Chair, Sarah Tantillo, EdD, who serves as Managing Director of Humanities at the Great Oaks Legacy Charter School in Newark, NJ. She is also the author of Hit the Drum and literacycookbook.com)

Among the many challenges of teaching online is the need to build community in our virtual classrooms.  In the spring when we went remote, we already knew our students and had built strong relationships with them in person.  This fall, we don’t have that advantage.

The teachers I work with at Great Oaks Legacy Charter Schools Network have spent the past month trying out various ways to build community in their middle school Zoom classrooms, and in a recent meeting, they shared what has worked.

Before class starts and in the first few minutes of class:

·       Greet students warmly by name.

·       Engage in mini chit-chat.

·       Invite students to type in the Chat responses to personal questions such as “What are you doing this weekend?  What did you like about ___?  What’s something positive happening in your life?” or other “getting-to-know-you” questions.

·       Run a quick Show and Tell.

·       Do a daily “temperature check” via a Zoom or Nearpod poll (e.g., “How are you feeling? A) Excited, B) Sleepy, C) OK, D) Ehhh, E) Don’t ask.”) and use that data immediately.  For example, if students mostly respond “Sleepy,” get them up to do an energizer—maybe a Dance Minute or a quick “Shake It Out” activity.

During class:

·       Show students’ faces as much as possible.  When you share your screen, students can only see 4-5 faces at a time.

·       Encourage supportive hand signals like “brain-matching.”

·       Give students voice in the classroom through Chat or by unmuting themselves.  Remind students that this is “our” classroom, not a podcast.

·       Put students in breakout rooms for discussions; make sure your directions are clear so that students can jump right in.

·       Make learning “a collaborative thing” as much as possible.

·       Constantly praise students by name for positive behaviors/academic success and encourage them to do the same with one another. Model praise in the Chat.

·       Encourage students to “@Chat”: to respond to one another’s academic remarks (“@Javon, I agree with you!” or “@Amaya, nice explanation!”)

·       Invite students to co-host and share their screens.

·       Establish various roles for students.  Here’s what one teacher introduced in the first week:

o   Time Keeper - Give me a 10-minute warning when class is going to end. I want to respect your time and your breaks!

o   Class DJ - You have to be able to get to class early and play the pump-up tunes before class begins. 

o   Mini Me - You will be in charge of leading the class discussion from whatever the topic of the Do Now is; you get to be the teacher. 

o   I Got This - During class discussions if we reach a point where the conversation gets stale, you will keep the conversation going. 

o   Joy Factor - You will encourage us in the chat and motivate your classmates to speak up and shout them out.

Other things to keep in mind as you move through your lesson:

Students participating in the Center’s Virtual Summer Bridge program complete a mindfulness exercise.

·       Be transparent and show respect for their feelings and ideas that they share.

·       Be honest and straightforward: We are human and we aren’t perfect. 

·       Telling a random joke or making a connection to real life can break the monotony of a lesson and also help students to engage.

·       Play games that tie into the lesson.

At the end of class, stay on for students who have questions or just want to be social for a few minutes.

Since the quarantine began, PBC has been offering resources for educators and families to help them build community and develop students’ social-emotional learning skills. Archives of the resources are hosted on PBC’s COVID-19 and SEL Resources page.

I hope these ideas will help others.  We are all in this together!

Virtual Summer Bridge - A New Learning Adventure

Last month we shared the disappointing news that, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Princeton-Blairstown Center (PBC) would be unable to welcome groups of students to the Blairstown Campus for our award-winning Summer Bridge enrichment program this year. As most Compass Points readers know, the PBC Summer Bridge program is designed to ameliorate the insidious “summer learning loss” that particularly affects children in under-resourced communities. What made this announcement even more painful was the knowledge that many children from these communities were already experiencing an academic crisis caused by the hasty, but necessary implementation of online instruction and the broader economic and social distress caused by the pandemic. In fact, a recent study by the Brookings Institution reports that “these additional stressors suggest that the COVID-19 slump might have even more impact on children from under-resourced homes than the [typical] summer slump.” For these reasons (and many more), PBC is collaborating with two Summer Bridge partner organizations, Mercer Street Friends (MSF) and the Center for Child and Family Achievement (CCFA), to deliver an engaging blend of virtual STEAM, literacy, and social emotional learning programming to nearly fifty children throughout the month of July.

Students began the program developing a shared “Full Value Contract” that would govern interpersonal relationships in the virtual classroom space – the same way that we would help groups self-govern if they were physically present on Campus. Students then worked both alone and together to solve an array of STEAM and SEL challenges designed to foster critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and responsible decision-making, while strengthening their social awareness and building strong relationships with their facilitators, chaperones, and peers. Divided into small groups of fewer than ten students, each cohort was led by a trained PBC facilitator and adult chaperone from the partnering organization. This favorable “classroom” ratio enhanced personalized instruction and accountability, resulting in active student engagement during each two-hour synchronous learning session and additional hour of daily asynchronous programming.   

A screenshot of PBC Facilitator Makela reviewing the projects of students from CCFA during their Virtual Summer Bridge session.

During the program, participants contemplated scenarios such as being “lost at sea”, collaboratively prioritizing a list of life saving supplies to be loaded into their imaginary “lifeboat”. They designed and built boats using everyday household items and then developed a sales pitch to promote their model against the “competition.” They designed and played musical instruments built from found objects. They germinated and dissected seeds. They nurtured plant life for an indoor garden. They built and tested catapults, calculating the trajectories of objects launched (safely!) across their bedrooms. They made “Friendship Bracelets” and learned about indigenous American’s culture. They wrote poetry in several formats, including haiku. They dissected owl pellets, watched nature videos, and recorded their own insights in a nature journal. And perhaps most importantly, throughout the program students reflected on their progress and celebrated accomplishments. Our hope is that they also were reminded, discovered, or re-discovered that learning can be fun; working together trumps going it alone; and that there are people beyond the walls of their home who care about their well-being and success.

The feedback from our partner organizations has been uniformly positive. Wanda Webster Stansbury, Executive Director of CCFA remarked, “I want to take a moment to say thank you to everyone for an exceptional experience for all of the students who attended the Princeton-Blairstown virtual summer program. Today I enjoyed participating in sessions conducted by Makela, Handy and Tabs—you were all fantastic and the activities were fun and informative!”  Chelsea Jenkins, Program Manager for MSF, expressed her appreciation for the “original, creative, and engaging curriculum PBC developed for this virtual experience.” While all agree that nothing can truly replace a trip to PBC’s 264-acre outdoor classroom, our Trenton partners were grateful for the opportunity to work with our talented staff to provide meaningful programming that activated and challenged young minds and strengthened community bonds in these troubled times.

In designing and delivering the Virtual Summer Bridge program, the PBC staff lived the philosophy that guides our daily work with young people—growth occurs when we stretch beyond our comfort zone. While 2020 will undoubtedly be remembered for many things, our hope is that the students from CCFA and MSF will look back on this unusual summer and be inspired by PBC staff who put their own 21st Century skills to work to provide a fun and enriching experience. With the continued support of our generous donors, PBC remains committed to providing the very best in experiential and environmental programming—by any means necessary—until all can safely return to our beautiful campus in the woods.

Reimagining Summer Bridge Puts 21st Century Skills to the Test

Virtual Summer Bridge…it’s in the bag!

Some examples of items to be included in the “PBC in A Bag” totes - Snacks, Stem and art supplies, books, a Summer Bridge tee shirt, and more!

No, seriously – in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, Summer Bridge students will not be on Campus at PBC this year. But for those community partners willing to take a virtual learning journey with us, PBC will offer a Virtual Summer Bridge program throughout the summer via a mix of real-time and self-guided offerings, with all of the materials needed to complete planned activities (along with age-appropriate books, snacks, tee shirts, and other swag) delivered to participants in a PBC tote bag.

In conversation with our partner organizations, it was clear that hosting Sumer Bridge in this virtual format would require extra effort to ensure that students had a chance to truly remain engaged. It had to be expertly tailored to the needs of students who might already be struggling with, confused by, or just plain burnt out on distance learning. We continue to hear that it was a long, confusing, and often-bumpy experience for students, parents, and faculty as they navigated the challenges of teaching and learning in the unfamiliar world of virtual instruction required in the midst of a global pandemic.

With this in mind, the PBC Program Team did significant research and planning to develop the Virtual Summer Bridge curriculum that incorporates a variety of check-ins, challenges, creative outlets, brain breaks, and games. At the same time, the Program Team is preparing to spend time far outside of their own comfort zones by facilitating positive group dynamics and hands-on learning from many physical miles away.

21st Century Skills Illustration.

Courtesy of Battelle for Kids - p21.org

While it certainly isn’t the spring or summer that any of us had hoped for at the beginning of the year, it has repeatedly underscored that young people and adults all need to spend time developing and honing their 21st Century skills. Critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, technology literacy, and flexibility are some of the first things that come to mind when thinking about what we have all needed to manage the stressors and dynamic environment of the present – and future.