Building Community
Building Community
For students to feel empowered to share ideas freely, instructors must work to foster a classroom culture that is both caring and challenging, safe and supportive. Such a culture seldom materializes by happenstance, and building it must be a sustained effort throughout the semester. With community in mind, effective instructors consider how to set up the physical environment, how to encourage intellectual risk-taking, and how to model appropriate discussion behaviors, such as active listening and responding to one another respectfully.
How might we get to know our students better so we understand their prior experiences and content knowledge? How do we set a tone in which students are unafraid to share ideas, even if they may not be “right”? What steps can we take so that in-class discussion flows more like a conversation wherein students respond to each other’s ideas rather than simply looking to their professor for affirmation? In these videos, featured professors describe actions they take to build community in their discussion- and lecture-based classrooms.
How can I lay the foundation for a strong classroom culture?
How can I encourage students to take risks?
What does the research say?
- Using the theory of conceptual change in biology education, Tanner and Allen argue that wrong answers can help instructors teach “right” answers. Framing wrong answers for students as starting points toward better understanding could help normalize making mistakes (2005).
- Instructor nonverbal immediacy (behaviors like eye contact and smiling) has been correlated with student self-reports of enhanced and affective learning. Affective learning is an important consideration since students’ emotional responses in class could promote or impede student learning (Witt et al., 2007).
- In an investigation of student perspectives on classroom environment, authors described classroom safe spaces as settings where students were able to take risks, and rewards outweighed potential penalties. Ways instructors might facilitate environments of willing risk-taking include welcoming discussion, being approachable and supportive, avoiding punishment for unpopular views, and being emotionally present (Holley & Steiner, 2005).
Further Print Resources
Further Online Resources
Featured Faculty
Paola Arlotta
Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology
Course details:
"Got (New) Brain? The Evolution of Brain Regeneration"; Harvard College; 22 students
Relevant quote:
“I try to draw in students in a gentle way. Then, bit by bit, even a student who’s more shy at the beginning sees that everybody can raise their hands -- that I don’t really bite.”
Gretchen Brion-Meisels
Lecturer on Education
Course details:
"Partnering with Youth on Educational Research and Practice"; Harvard Graduate School of Education; 30 students
Relevant quote:
"My goal for the class is that we will grapple with hard questions that come up when you try to partner with youth…I want us to grapple with questions that are authentically hard for everyone in the room."
Brett Flehinger
Lecturer on History
Course details:
American Populisms: From Thomas Jefferson to the Tea Party + Trump; Harvard College; 38 students
Relevant quote:
"I often refer to the class as a “collective brain.” What we get out of a class is what we all put into it. I want students to have that kind of shared ownership."
Tina Grotzer
Principal Research Scientist in Education
Course details:
"Applying Cognitive Science Research: Principles to Learning and Teaching"; Harvard Graduate School of Education; 40 students
Relevant quote:
"Often I’m making instructional moves and then I'll tell students why I made the move. Sometimes I'll tell them why I didn't do something else because that's often just as informative."
Robert Kegan
William and Miriam Meehan Research Professor in Adult Learning and Professional Development
Course details:
"Adult Development"; Harvard Graduate School of Education; ~200 students
Relevant quote:
"One of the great glories of a class is that you build up a relationship with people over many weeks, and they come to count on you, and you get the dividends of those many weeks."
Dan Levy
Senior Lecturer in Public Policy
Course details:
"Advanced Quantitative Methods"; Harvard Kennedy School; 74 students
Relevant quote:
"I never want a student to not participate in class just because they feel they don't have the right answer."
Jane Mansbridge
Charles F. Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Value
Course details:
"Democratic Theory"; Harvard Kennedy School; ~30 students
Relevant quote:
"I don't see it so much as being immersed in uncertainty during the class discussion as I do fleshing out some of the possibilities and getting excited about those possibilities."
Timothy Patrick McCarthy
Lecturer on History and Literature
Course details:
"Stories of Slavery & Freedom"; Harvard College; 16 students
Relevant quote:
"Students are getting the most out of their learning when I can relinquish control of the classroom to them. But the only way to get to that place is being really engaged and devoted to modeling behaviors at the outset."
Christina “V” Villarreal
Lecturer on Education
Course details:
"Ethnic Studies"; Harvard Graduate School of Education; 23 students
Relevant quote:
"I'm a teacher, but I'm also a learner in this space. I'm a speaker, but I'm also a listener. In every curricular and pedagogical move I make, I am trying to communicate that philosophy."
