I am interested in developing a community of learners in each of my courses, therefore I introduce this concept during the first or second week of the term. Urban community college students often have very little time to meet other students, including those in their own major. This community building exercise offers them an opportunity to familiarize themselves with their classmates as individuals and to think critically about the place of community in their experience as students.
This lesson is part of both the broader notion that students optimize their learning when their comfort level is high, and my own effort to encourage students to reflect on the place of community in their own learning. In all my courses I try to develop and support a community of learners where students see each other as resources, contributing to their own learning. I am interested in students being engaged in inquiry that is content as well as self-based. In this exercise, they have an opportunity to examine their personal histories as individuals, as members of a community, and as learners. In the next assignment, About Me: A Personal Narrative, students explore further who they are as learners and the community that supports them to meet their academic goals.
This lesson helps me get across two valuable points early in the semester. Having someone else around to learn with (do research, write essays, learn concepts) is more fruitful and fun than trying to do it alone. Collaborating with someone else yields better measurable results in terms of quality of work, grades and satisfaction with their own work. As the instructor, sending the message that every person in the classroom is a potential resource in their own learning sets a tone that produces very interesting cooperative projects, where students learn to negotiate time more effectively, better manage their own contributions to an assignment, examine their own learning styles, and take responsibility for seeing the job completed. Often students feel they take something tangible with them. In the end, I am happy because these are critical skills that, if developed, will help them in any course or professional endeavor.
Blackboard offers students the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions about the community building exercise, to re-visit their own comments after reading their peers’ entries, and to respond to their classmates’ observations.
Activity Overview
Prior to class, I prepare a handout with instructions for the community building exercise. Students are somewhat familiar with the idea of building community, since the first day of class everyone has to introduce himself/herself to the class in an ice breaker routine.
This activity takes one to two class hours, depending on the group size. During the first hour, students meet in groups of three for 12 to 15 minutes. They are instructed to interview each other to gather biographical data that they will then use to introduce their peers to the rest of the class. Hence, each student is introduced by two classmates who must provide different information about their interviewees.
In a plenary session lasting 30 to 35 minutes, students introduce each other to the entire class in a round robin fashion until the last person has been introduced. Each speaker states the name of the person he/she interviewed and shares three details about this individual. In the remaining time (approximately 10 minutes), students are asked to jot down their thoughts about the community building exercise using the guide questions:
- Was the community building activity useful to building a community of learners? Why? Why not? Explain.
- Was the community building activity a waste of your time? Why? Why not? Explain.
- What are the most important ideas you encountered in this class activity?
- How might the community building activity help you with your learning in this course?
- Was your mind changed in any way about the other students enrolled in this course?
In the second hour, students post their thoughts and opinions about the community building exercise using the Discussion Board in Blackboard, read at least two postings by students other than those they interviewed, and reply to the postings of the two peers they interviewed (30–35 minutes). This could also be assigned as homework for the next class.
Materials and Resources
Brookfield, Stephen D. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995.
Brookfield, Stephen D. Developing Critical Thinkers: Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative Ways of Thinking and Acting. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987.
Bond, David, Rosemary Keogh, and David Walker, eds. Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning. London: Kogan Page, 1985.
Seibert, Kent W. and Marilyn W. Daudelin. The Role of Reflection in Managerial Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice.Westport, CT: Quorum, 1999. (Particularly chapter 2.)