Enhancements to Instructional Practices

Increase Social Connectedness in an Intellectual Community

College students’ social connectedness is positively correlated with achievement motivation (Walton et al, 2012). Encouraging students to interact with each other in your learning spaces can bolster their formation of social ties and sense of community. Connectedness with instructors is important, too, as faculty members who are supportive of students can have a significant positive impact on students’ intentions to persist after their first year (Shelton, 2003).

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Example practices

The strategies below are organized along the timeline of a course: from development and syllabus planning, to early weeks of the semester, to ongoing.

Course Development and Planning

  • Consider creating student groupings as part of your course design. If students are submitting collaborative work, that may also mean fewer assignments for you to grade.
  • Encourage collaboration and study groups as appropriate and within the Honor Code. Consider designing an assignment that would require cooperative learning among students.
  • Consume media written and created by current college students to understand how they're experiencing the world.

Early (First Two Weeks)

  • Encourage collaboration and study groups as appropriate and within the Honor Code. Consider designing an assignment that would require cooperative learning among students.
  • Ask students to take down the name and contact information of at least one of their peers (and/or create and join a class group message) so that they can connect should they miss a lecture or want to form a study group.
  • In the first week of class, use a survey to get to know students. Ask about their interests, strengths, needs, what excites them about the course, and what they are nervous about in the course.
    • Use the survey information to make adjustments to course content; contextualize or connect course content and skills to students’ interests and experiences.
  • Share information about your career path, including how you got into your field, what interests you about your discipline, topics and questions that animate your research (and explanations of why) in terms comprehensible to a novice.
  • Learn students’ names whenever possible. If you do not do so already, consider downloading student photo rosters from Canvas which you can keep at your desk/podium/with you when meeting with them.
  • Make class sessions or lab meetings interactive: consider think-pair-share activities in which students think about a question you pose, pair up with a peer, and then discuss their thoughts. Encourage students to introduce themselves to each other during these activities.
  • For new lab members, cohort members, or advisees, create opportunities for people to share who they are, why they are there, and what they can help others with. “Icebreakers” is also an overused term, but many of these activities (whether framed as icebreakers or circle questions) do really help to break down barriers between people who are just meeting each other and are expected to work together.

Ongoing

  • In office hours, introduce students to one another and encourage them to collaborate there and on their own.
  • When scheduling your office hours, consider that in-season varsity athletes are usually in practice from 4:30pm-6:00pm.
  • Make class sessions or lab meetings interactive: consider think-pair-share activities in which students think about a question you pose, pair up with a peer, and then discuss their thoughts. Encourage students to introduce themselves to each other during these activities.