Our guest blogger for February is lecturer Laura Waldrep. Laura has been teaching in the FYWP since 2012, and she is a graduate of NC State’s English MA program.
When I was a TA in the First-Year Writing Program, my mentor was Matt Porter. At the beginning of each class, Matt would share an interesting fact he had learned with the class, whether it was a piece of news from NPR or an odd piece of trivia he had read online. Each day the students knew a piece of knowledge was coming their way, and I could tell how much they looked forward to this established routine. After a few weeks, they even began to contribute their own interesting facts, eager to add to the sense of community that Matt had welcomed into their class. I understood the way they felt. I too wanted to share random bits of knowledge with them, to engage in conversations that brought the outside world into the classroom.
When I started teaching my own classes, I tried to use the same strategy. What had felt organic and natural in Matt’s class, however, felt stilted and forced in my class. I wasn’t doing anything differently, but the learning environment had changed. I was teaching hybrid courses that met only once a week rather than the traditional 4-day or 2-day English 101 classes, and there was a lack of continuity that made me feel discouraged and disconnected from my students.
I knew I wanted to continue to build a classroom community, but I needed to do so in my own way. When I shifted into teaching English 101 entirely online, this need felt even stronger. How could I ask students to share their writing with strangers? Though there are many ways of building community in an online class, the strategy that has worked the best for me is to make it an explicit goal and activity each week in the form of an “Icebreaker of the Week” forum.
Each week I provide a new Icebreaker question and the students are required to post an answer to the question and a reply to at least one classmate. I encourage the students to post pictures, links, and videos in their responses, moving beyond just text in their answers. From week to week they might be writing about what they love most about their family, their favorite music video, or the funniest meme they’ve seen. I always include an image or GIF in the directions for the forum related to that week’s question, but beyond that, my presence in the Icebreaker forums is minimal, though I will sometimes respond to posts that stand out in some way.
In my hybrid classes, I tend to use the Icebreakers for community and continuity, and I’ll often pull them up on the screen before class begins to share some of them. Students who arrive early get to see my reactions to their posts and have the chance to engage in F2F conversations that extend the icebreaker posts beyond the realm of Moodle.
The students know my reasoning for the forums and they consistently cite the Icebreakers as strengths in the class. They appreciate the chance to get to know one another in an informal way, and they are able to build a sense of community that carries through into the more formal and academic writing tasks associated with the course.
Below I’ve shared an example of an “Icebreaker of the Week.” I’d love to learn more about the strategies that others use in their classes. What is your go-to method for building community in the classroom (whether it is F2F or online)?
Icebreaker of the Week: What is the worst job you’ve ever had? Feel free to include an image/link.
