Social connections support well-being, belonging, and student success.

This week’s “Be a Strong Student” message asks students to “Make [Their] Own Community,” recognizing the multiple benefits that come from socialization and making connections with others, from general well-being to college success. Students who are connected to others feel they belong and are more successful.

Community-building in the classroom

• Help students get to know each other through icebreakers and other activities.
• Have students form small groups of “essential friends”:
  • An essential friend (term adapted from Dr. Milton Fuentes’s concept of a “critical friend”) is someone in the class a student can contact if they miss class, for example, and who can contact them for information in turn.
• Build in activities that enable students to work with each other, from a simple, short “turn and talk” to more substantial engagement with group or team learning, which really enable students to form connections with other Manor students.
  • Try longer-term small groups or, in shifting groups, build an extra two minutes into small group work to allow students to introduce themselves.

 

Community Outside the Classroom

• Promote the benefits of social connection and community. Recommend that students schedule time to interact with peers as part of their time management planning.
• Remind students that community building takes different forms, from actively participating in a club to occasionally meeting with a classmate in the library to review notes.
• Promote events, activities, and organizations you, your department, program, or college are involved with in class or via a message to your students. Let them know what’s going on and explicitly invite them.