The benefits of a virtual classroom community go beyond a warm and loving environment, it leads to engaged students. Having engaged students is a challenge when your students are virtual. It is hard for adults to be engaged and focused at home, and students struggle just as much. There are plenty of ways to help students feel connected virtually!
Online Social Gatherings
Just like in the classroom, students want to be social. Social time might be more important than ever in the virtual environment. While it is not as simple as students talking to one another during passing period or over lunch, you can still create a virtual classroom community!
Create time in your routine for students to talk to one another. This could include 10 minutes before class starts. You can start the class with a silly question to ponder or a conversation starter to get their conversations going.
Incorporate group work into your classroom lessons. Use the tools available to you on your video conferencing platform. Many video conferencing platforms now offer tools for breakout sessions and small group work. This is a great opportunity for students to talk with each other.
Build in regular fun social activities. These activities can be outside of your normal classroom time. They might include a game of jeopardy, trivia, hangman, or even a classroom version of Nailed it!
Bring some fun to the class with a spirit week. Take it up a notch by allowing students to vote on the spirit week theme. Students will have fun dressing up and seeing their classmates dress up. It will also bring some variety to the day. Add a challenge to your spirit week, such as a pumpkin decorating contest or a gingerbread house contest. Students will love showing off their hard work.
Virtual Classroom Community with Consistent Check-Ins
Host online morning meetings for social/emotional check-ins. This can be as simple as a Take-5 or a full morning meeting. Students thrive on the structure and the opportunity to have a voice.
Do a daily check-in or Take-5 having a specified theme for each day. This gives students something to look forward to and an opportunity to share their thoughts. Try a theme for each day, such as Would You Rather Wednesday. Take it up a notch by allowing students to submit questions or prompts for the upcoming week.
Create a daily or weekly slideshow that spotlights students. Try a birthday slide. You could also do a shout-out slide for students that have done something exceptionally well that week. Spotlight slides are also a great way to get to know each other. You can take spotlight slides a step further and have students guess the classmate that is getting the spotlight that week.
Use mini mindfulness breaks or brain breaks throughout your lesson. Sitting in front of a computer can be challenging! You can find many activities such as yoga, wake-up videos, breathing exercises, and so much more on Go Noodle.
Be Accessible
Working at home can feel isolating. Give students and parents a variety of ways to contact you. Try setting up a virtual help desk. You can do this with a simple Google Form. It can be a one-stop shop for students and parents to ask questions and share their concerns.
Offer virtual office hours. Open up a virtual meeting for a set time each day and allow students to log in to ask questions. This is a great way for students to feel like they are in the classroom.
Send postcards to students and parents. This is an excellent tangible way for you to show families that you are real and you care. Everyone loves getting mail, and a postcard is a simple way to feel special.
Continue communication with parents. In a virtual world, it is great to have human contact. Use phone calls to help your families feel connected.
SEL Unfiltered
Do you want to hear more? Check out the rest of our series on Career Readiness on our SEL Unfiltered podcast, wherever you stream your podcasts.
Check out other episodes in our Classroom Community series, including What is classroom community?, Strategies for Educators – Creating Classroom Community, and The Benefits of Classroom Community.
Game of the Week
Every week on SEL Unfiltered, we like to bring you a game or activity. You can use the game with your students, in the classroom, or in a small group. This week Kaitlin and I talked about a “Snowball” fight.
Paper snowball fights are a great way to get students moving and laughing. They cut down the stress of sharing one’s thoughts. To start, students will write down their answers on paper. Try a simple topic “what is making you feel stressed right now?” Get classroom input with, “what do you see our class needs to improve on?”.
Once students have written their answer, they will wad up their paper into a paper ball. Then all students will begin throwing their paper snowballs into the center of the room. Students can continue the snowball fight for 30 seconds to add more fun to the game.
At the end of the throwing, instruct each student to pick up a piece of paper. Go around the room, allowing each student to read the paper they picked up. This is an excellent way for students to share their thoughts anonymously while having fun. You can have a classroom discussion on the topic after all the papers have been read.
