Building Community in Online Classrooms

This morning I particpated in a Project Zero Virtual Workshop. The entire workshop was focused on ways of building community online. We commenced with some greetings in front of our cameras – acting out the favourite thing we each did during the week (for me it was yoga), our favourite animal, and then pretending to eat the food we hate the most.

This was followed by a Colour, Symbol, Image thinking routine, which we each held up in front of the camera and explained to our breakout group. Whoever taught the youngest kids went first in our debriefing, and this was a nice way of deciding the order of speakers.

After this routine, we used the Sesame Street Grover routine of Near and Far and then Up and Down. It worked a treat to foster engagement.

Facilitator Kurt Wootten then explained the way he uses a Cordel in his Mexican school. This time we had to choose a quote from a list of options and then explain to our breakout group why we chose the quote. Music was playing in the background as we read the quote options.

Finally, we finished with a protocol called Stories. We were paired up to tell a brief two minute story to a partner, responding to the question, what have you found during this time? While our partner was speaking, we were encouraged to note down phrases that resonated. We concluded by typing them into a Menti and scrolling through to finish.

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