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Online learning shook up the way educators had to think about building community in the classroom. The effects of lockdowns and social distancing have created an aftershock that’s still present. Creating a sense of community and belonging has never been more important as students are more distanced than before the pandemic.
Building community in the classroom is vital because it allows students to form positive relationships and feel included. It also teaches them social skills and collaboration.
In this article, we’ll explore activities that help to build community in the classroom. We’ll also identify characteristics of successful community building to evaluate implementation.
How do you build community in the classroom
Building community in the classroom is more than assigning group work or teams. A community is created through sharing. Shared beliefs, shared values, shared ideas or attitudes all play a part. While classrooms are shared spaces, that doesn’t mean learners share the same ideals. When fostering community, it is important to encourage sharing, even when this leads to disagreement.
When utilizing small groups, sometimes it is best to let children choose their own groups to give them more autonomy. However, it is also important to assign groups on other occasions to get students interacting, who might not otherwise talk on the playground.
Community is about sharing but it’s also about compromise. This means that the best approach to building community is both fostering existing relationships and developing new ones. Use a balanced approach and keep it fresh.
Online learning and classroom community
Online learning can make it difficult to replicate the methods used in classrooms pre-pandemic. Missing from virtual learning is the opportunity for children to regularly converse in small groups, not only to learn but also to develop their social skills. While some teachers do their best to create small group opportunities, there are fewer of them, and interaction is often limited. Social interactions are sometimes limited to typing on a keyboard or “raising” a virtual hand. While teachers work to nurture discussion, some students are less responsive to the new medium.
When online learning is present, it’s important to utilize breakout rooms and create social games to give students a sense of connection. Icebreakers like human bingo, where children record a short video introduction, and students must match listed interests on a bingo board to a name, are a great way to promote classroom community. In this activity, students discuss answers through microphones and typed messages. Find more examples of virtual social learning activities, here.
Activities to build community in the classroom
There are methods for creating community in the classroom that can be used both offline and online. Here are core ideas to create classroom community activities:
Create classroom goals and rules together. To promote teamwork and community, have students help create group goals and rules together. This creates a shared purpose.
Encourage your classroom to discuss their ideas. Through sharing beliefs and values or even approaches and methods, children are able to understand more about each other. They can also figure out their own position within a team. This helps them to become more aware and mindful in general. It also helps to combat assumptions to enable children to learn, rather than make judgments.
Develop social awareness. Children require knowledge about their peers. They need to understand that differences are common parts of life and can be celebrated. Use a range of tools such as stories relevant to younger people to give them reference points and something to identify with. Implement games that encourage children to discuss likenesses and differences. That’s Me is a game where the teacher makes a statement, such as “I have a brother” and the children who can relate, chime in and say “that’s me” if it applies to them. Implement social icebreakers regularly throughout the year, rather than restricting to the beginning of the year. More substantive interactions may occur when used more frequently.
Develop emotional awareness. Children need to grasp their own feelings to manage them. This also helps them to understand others through empathy. Ask your class to get introspective with creative writing and role play. Using their own feelings and emotions, and collaborating or sharing this with others will develop their personal and social awareness. Playing “Feelings Charades” where a child demonstrates an emotion and students guess the emotion is one activity that promotes emotional awareness.
Take inspiration from businesses. Businesses are always looking to improve their working communities through team-building exercises. These are fantastic opportunities to create a social learning environment. Adapt online team-building games and activities meant for business to the classroom.
How to identify characteristics of classroom community
Characteristics of classroom community can be identified in multiple ways. Look for these moments to confirm that a classroom has indeed become a community.
Note whether classmates are answering questions for others. Not only does this take a bit of pressure off of you as a teacher, but it also demonstrates that kids are willing to share with one another.
Take moments to discuss things beyond the curriculum. If children are sharing details about their personal lives it shows that they are comfortable with each other. It also helps them to build trust because they begin to understand their differences and build their empathy skills.
Use self-reflection to measure how well activities are working. After working in a group, children can fill out a worksheet to detail what they have learned, how they have learned it, and also indicate areas of improvement. This helps you plan future sessions that incorporate community building activities.
Identify leaders in the classroom. Children might not always be confident in taking charge. Assigning a group leader, especially ones that wouldn’t normally occupy this position, gives them the opportunity to develop leadership skills and show that they are willing to engage. It also prevents children from being excluded when more confident kids automatically fill these roles. It’s a balancing act where you may reward natural leaders but also persuade others to take on the challenge.
While the focus in school is often on literacy and STEM subjects, emotional intelligence is an important part of learning. However, often there isn’t time to focus solely on emotional intelligence when already on a tight schedule. Fortunately, leading by example is one aspect of teaching emotional intelligence, especially the concept of empathy. Teaching empathy to kids is a matter of creating a safe environment for children to express themselves and ask questions. In other words, both teachers and parents can teach empathy through example and daily activities.
What Is Empathy?
Empathy is the ability to understand the thoughts, feelings or experiences of others. It is an action that requires being aware of or being sensitive to other people’s emotions. There are two aspects of empathy: affective empathy and cognitive empathy (UC Berkeley). Affective empathy is when you feel what another person is feeling and mirror them. Cognitive empathy is understanding the emotions of others. In this article, we’ll focus on cognitive empathy.
Empathy is a key ingredient in relationship building. Studies have shown that it helps to reduce prejudices, leads to greater happiness, and even improves health (UC Berkeley).
Teaching Empathy To Kids Through Daily Tasks
Parents or guardians can teach empathy to kids when conducting daily tasks such as catching the bus or when you’re at the store. Pointing out body language and explaining how someone else might be feeling enables young people to begin identifying a world outside their own. It is also important to encourage children to ask questions. When they ask questions, you know they are internalizing your explanations and can start to think for themselves, rather than relying on external guidance.
Mistakes
Teaching empathy to elementary students requires that they are given the opportunity to make mistakes. Younger children learn better from mimicking behavior. Therefore, being patient and allowing them a chance to make errors enables them to adopt this kind of behavior in the future when they are supporting their friends. It will also help them when resolving conflicts of their own. They begin to build a picture that emotions aren’t about expectations and planning, but about reacting to life as in unfurls before them. This will enable them to build healthy relationships with those around them. Especially in cases where the other children and people they come into contact with are different from them.
Listening
It is also crucial that you teach kids empathy by encouraging them to listen. This is not just listening to your explanations, but listening to their own thoughts of feelings and that of others. In these conversations, they have the opportunity to understand differences and develop the ability to put themselves in other people’s shoes. Asking your children to think about their own thoughts and feelings is a starting point. Then they’ll need to apply that to how others may be thinking and feeling. A greater self-awareness develops a deeper understanding of emotions more generally.
How To Teach Empathy To A Teenager
Teenagers are different from younger children as they stop mimicking behavior they learn from their teachers and parents or guardians. Instead, they begin to find their own way. Often these choices can seem like an act of rebellion. However, this is just a matter of trying to figure out the world in their own way. It is vital that you continue to allow teenagers to make mistakes as you would any young person, and that you continue to lead by example. As a role model, you can recall times you have also made mistakes and teach them empathy by practicing it yourself.
At times, you may need to call out behaviors that are inappropriate; more so with teenagers than you would with younger children. However, this should not come as punishment. Instead, you must check and balance their reactions with your own response. Contextualize the situation and create space for them to express themselves freely. By listening and responding accordingly, you are demonstrating empathy in your own actions. So, it is therefore reasonable that you ask them to do the same. This helps them to develop their conflict resolution skills as you aren’t shying away from more difficult conversations. At home or in school, they can practice empathy in a safe environment. Then they can apply this to situations they face in the real world.
Activities To Teach Empathy
There are many ways to actively teach empathy that supplement day-to-day interactions. Empathy activities for kids include stories, role-playing, and even creative writing or art. Here are a few:
Read.According to research, children who read fiction are more likely to understand other people’s emotions and intentions.
Study facial expressions. Children can learn to identify other people’s emotions by studying facial expressions. You can find a variety of worksheets and games online to help children better identify expressions and emotions.
Play games. When children compete in games they are creating a mental model of other people’s intentions and thoughts.
Play music in a group. A recent study showed that playing music together, such as in a band, increases empathy.
Sports. Sports and team activities provide children with knowledge of how others behave and why they behave in the ways they do in conversation with their own. In these instances, it is important to emphasize teamwork and sportsmanship above competition and winning.
Active Imagining. Activities where children are actively imagining situations involving others is another great way to boost empathy.
Soul Shoppe creates cultures of compassion, connection and curiosity. We teach social emotional development to children, teachers and professionals across the U.S.
A culture of inclusion is defined as creating and maintaining an environment in which people of different backgrounds can achieve their fullest potential (Harvard). It is a culture where different strengths are valued and celebrated. Whether in schools or in the workplace, building a culture of inclusion benefits both students/workers and the classroom/organization as a whole.
The Difference Between Diversity and a Culture of Inclusion
Though a culture of inclusion and diversity can sound similar, they are very different. You can have a diverse classroom or work environment and still not have a culture of inclusion. Diversity is simply referring to demographics. A culture of inclusion means that everyone is contributing their different voices, ideas and experiences to the overall classroom or workplace culture. This contribution supports a richer and more successful environment.
How to Create a Culture of Inclusion
Importance of Respect and Empathy
Empathy is a critical skill and a building block of creating a culture of diversity and inclusion. It is defined as the ability to emotionally understand the feelings of another. Commonly, it is described as being able to “walk in another person’s shoes.” This skill is necessary in order to create emotional growth, as well as a culture of compassion and connection. When people learn empathy, they are better able to respect other people’s thoughts, feelings, and world experiences. It is a transformative skill that changes our behaviors and the way we see others. Consequently, this is a strong focus of creating a culture of inclusion.
Culture of Inclusion in Schools
Creating a culture of inclusion in schools is important because it’s the main place young people will learn and emulate team behaviors. They are likely to carry these behaviors into the workforce and society as a whole. In addition, a culture of inclusion creates a safe classroom environment where children from all backgrounds can academically thrive.
Building a culture of inclusion in schools requires all stakeholders to share responsibility for inclusion. Some ideas for creating a more inclusive culture include:
Anti-bullying workshops
Diversity training
Writing a value statement
However, it goes beyond that. Even when enacting inclusive policies and practices, inclusive culture requires a shift of attitude. The entire school must embrace it and share the responsibility for it to come to fruition. This is where empathy and teamwork is important. Building a culture of inclusion takes everyone.
How to Promote Inclusion in the Workplace
Community building in the workplace is an important aspect of cultural inclusion. Workplace community is the culture of a company and its morale. It is influenced by individual perspectives and experiences. Therefore, it is critical that the workplace community is safe, productive, and cohesive. When workplace culture is positive, employees bring their authentic selves to the team and value their work. In order to build community, a sense of belonging and connection is required. This can be done by appreciating individual and group contributions, and being responsive to employee concerns. Similarly, holding spaces to listen to employees is necessary. Inclusive behaviors in the workplace begin at the leadership level first. Leaders can model empathy in their daily interactions, which demonstrates how employees should act. Actively demonstrating empathy and respect, helps businesses and individuals to thrive.
Creating policies that promote inclusiveness is an important first step. In addition to policies, empowering team members to solve problems and come up with new ideas promotes inclusiveness. Along with empowerment, a work culture that promotes courage is one that fosters inclusiveness. Employees should feel they can stand up for what they believe in. Lastly, promoting humility in the workplace is important for creating a positive workplace culture. Humility allows team members the ability to take constructive criticism and overcome limited viewpoints by listening to others.
Conclusion
Building a culture of inclusion is more than just a one time training event. It is creating a shift in the overall culture. It requires commitment from everyone from leaders to employees to students alike. By creating positive environments that foster empowerment, humility and courage, both schools and workplaces are more likely to succeed.
Whether you want to improve your school, community, or workplace, Soul Shoppe provides social emotional learning programs and resources. We offer programs on cultural inclusion from teacher professional development to workplace culture training. Our team is highly trained, informative, and makes training fun. We offer a transformative experience that will leave lasting results.
When we think of children developing skills, our thoughts often drift to milestones such as learning to ride a bike or acing their first test. However, children need more than physical achievements to thrive in life. Child emotional development includes several skills that help children understand themselves and others better. These skills help them navigate life in a fulfilling way. Furthermore, these skills promote future success well into adulthood.
What is Social and Emotional Development?
Social and emotional development refers to a child’s experience and expression of emotions and how they manage them. It also includes the ability to establish positive and rewarding relationships (Cohen and others 2005).
Social and emotional development is crucial in the first five years of life. However, emotional development continues well into adolescence.
Why is Teaching Child Emotional Development Valuable?
Nurturing a child’s emotional development helps to promote future happiness and success. Studies have shown that teaching emotional development improves students’ social and emotional skills and behaviors. Furthermore, it positively affects classroom organization, classroom management, and more.
4 Skills of Emotional Learning
Emotional development leads to five important skills, according to the National Center for Safe and Supportive Learning Environments. These include: emotional regulation, self and social awareness, learning how to establish positive relationships, and good decision making. These skills are vital to the success of children and adolescents.
Emotional Regulation
Emotional regulation is an essential part of development. It is defined as “The ability to exert control over one’s own emotional state. It may involve behaviors such as rethinking a challenging situation to reduce anger or anxiety, hiding visible signs of sadness or fear, or focusing on reasons to feel happy or calm” (PsychologyToday). Emotional regulation is critical to children’s relationships with themselves and others. Those that don’t have this type of regulation often experience emotional outbursts and isolation. It can also lead to depression and self-harming behaviors. However, it is a teachable skill. Through workshops and lessons in the classroom, we can teach children how to regulate emotions and have control over their thoughts and feelings.
Self and Social Awareness
Learning self-awareness is a critical aspect of emotional development. Self-awareness helps children acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses. This allows them to actively participate in their own success.
Self-aware children typically have more social awareness. Social awareness is the ability to have empathy for others. This leads to understanding the perspective of other cultures and social groups. Both self-awareness and social awareness are vital to the growth of each child and help children grow up to be conscientious adults.
Learning How To Have Positive Relationships
When children learn self and social awareness, they are better able to experience positive relationships. Building positive relationships encompasses several skills. One key aspect is knowing how to express emotions appropriately. At the same time, children need to learn how to respond to others with empathy. Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand the feelings of another.
Other skills children need to learn when building positive relationships include how to:
make friends
respond to conflict in a relationship
listen to others
give and receive feedback
These are just a few of the wide array of skills needed to build and maintain relationships. Successful relationships and rich social lives produce lasting benefits throughout life.
Good Decision Making
We tend to think good decision-making skills are developed through “trial and error.” However, that is a fallacy. Good decision-making is more than learning from successes and failures. It is a way of thinking about making decisions before a consequence occurs. This skill involves teaching children how to identify the problem, and possible solutions and consequences. By thinking critically about decision-making, they can make better choices.
Good decision-making affects children well throughout childhood and helps them to become more responsible and self-confident.
What are the Emotional Development Stages?
Early Childhood Emotional Development
Social and emotional development occurs rapidly in the first five years of life. This time of development is essential to the ultimate happiness and well-being of children.
In the early stages of child emotional development, children begin to learn self-awareness. In addition, they start exploring how to express emotions. They also learn how to interact with others. Furthermore, they learn how to safely explore their environment. In the early stages, children look to others to learn social cues. These cues help them navigate how to respond and play with others.
These building blocks of emotional development in early childhood are nurtured through positive reinforcement.
Elementary and Middle School Emotional Development
Between the ages of 5-13 emotional development progresses to include more self-regulation, problem-solving, social awareness, and more.
The child emotional development stages are listed below. Note that the time frame may be different for each child: (Source: Child-Encyclopedia).
Early Elementary (K-2nd Grade)
Learning how to fit in with other children
Continuing to learn self regulation
Learning self conscious emotions (such as embarrassment)
Needing support from adults but growing their self reliance skills
Middle Elementary (3rd-5th Grade)
Increased problem solving skills
Distancing self from adults and becoming more peer focused
Focus on problem solving
Understanding of multiple emotional states in the same person
Typically following norms for behavior
Middle School (6-8th grade)
Increased dependence on peers
Focus on social awareness and roles
Learning how to differentiate between close friends and acquaintances
Becoming more fluent in problem solving with multiple solutions
Increased emotional empathy
Learning impression management
High School
Learning how to communicate emotions and thoughts effectively
Becoming more proficient with impression management
We can increase children’s emotional intelligence to provide them with a better quality of life. Self-confidence, better relationships, and resilience can all be achieved through emotional development. When children are emotionally resilient, they can manage adversity and difficult times. In addition, research has demonstrated that intervening in children’s emotional development has a positive impact on their academic success. Whichever stage of emotional development children are in, there are appropriate lessons and support.
Soul Shoppe has workshops dedicated to the mission of creating safe learning environments. They help eliminate bullying, as well as teach empathy, emotional literacy skills, and conflict resolution. Learn more about social emotional learning for elementary students and social emotional development for middle school programs.
Coming off a year when classes were largely online, the need for social learning is at an all time high. Online learning has created obstacles for many families. Several parents are left needing to provide some form of home education on top of distance or remote learning for their kids, especially if they have children who need more attention in the classroom already.
So, how can students learn social skills online or in the home? There are many virtual social learning activities that can help students refine their social skills while staying remote. These practices can be modified to fit the needs of any age group and are easy for students, teachers, or parents to participate in. Here are four social-emotional learning activities that can be done from home:
Virtual Social Learning Activities
1. Find A Penpal
A fun way to get students socially involved in others’ lives while staying at home is connecting with a penpal. Some schools and communities have sponsored programs that safely and securely connect students (with parental consent) to penpals around the same age. If your community doesn’t have a program like this, you could ask your student to make a list of friends or family members they want to try to write to. It is important that students do not contact strangers or give out personal information for safety reasons. Fortunately, there are many penpal connection sites, but ensuring your student uses one through a trustworthy program (like a school or government agency) is key for this virtual social learning activity.
Having a penpal not only helps with writing and grammar skills, but also builds social skills. It also helps them learn about another community or culture. Writing is a fun way to practice socializing from afar.
2. Word and Image Association Games
Games designed to build associations between different situations and the emotions they involve have been used by K-12 teachers for decades. There are a few different ways to put them into practice. All forms of these exercises will help students pick up on social and emotional cues from themselves and the people around them.
The most commonly used method involves showing a student an image of a face and asking them to name the emotion the face is expressing. For example, a smiling face might be labeled as “happy” or “excited.” Check our Pinterest boards for social learning worksheets! Once the student becomes comfortable with that portion of the exercise, move on to asking the student how they would express certain emotions. As an example, a teacher or parent could say the word “worried” and see what facial expressions and body language the student expresses. These types of exercises are helpful in regulating social-emotional awareness.
3. Decision Making Scenarios
A step up from the word and image association game are decision making scenarios. These exercises involve having students decide what the morally right thing to do is in a given scenario. Teachers or parents can read the scenario out loud and then ask the student what the “right thing to do” is. Typically, the scenarios in question involve moral decisions such as returning lost items, reporting dangerous situations, and not giving into peer pressure.
To take this a step further, give students scenarios in which someone did something wrong. Then they answer the question “how should the antagonist in this scenario apologize to that person?” or “how could this person voice their feelings to the person that hurt them?”. I Message is a great tool for this. Virtual social learning activities like these give students the opportunity to recognize and practice navigating through challenging social interactions they will likely encounter at some point in their lives.
4. Writing Prompts About Emotions
One of the more common virtual social learning activities practiced is writing. Some behavioral specialists call this method “tracking and unpacking”. It entails writing about one’s emotions as they come up and then taking an inventory of them later. Ask students to turn their feelings into creative projects like songs, poems, or stories for additional excitement. But, if your student prefers traditional journaling, that works just as well and is potentially more straightforward of an approach.
5. Play Social Skill Games Online
There are websites that will provide social skills games when you sign up. However, you could also facilitate group time with video chat through platforms like Zoom to connect to friends and family. Plan social skill games for these times. One easy game that will encourage social behavior, is to throw ideas the student enjoys talking about in a cup and draw them at random to have all participants engage in conversation about the chosen topic. The topic could be anything from a place they like to go, to games they like to play, etc. Be as specific as possible with the topic such as Minecraft, Harry Potter, etc. to encourage detailed discussions and reciprocity.
There are so many virtual social learning activities to try. One of these is bound to help your student thrive.
Organizations That Can Help With Social Learning
Soul Shoppe has been recognized by many educational institutions for bringing students together and effectively training them in social and emotional intelligence. From in-person assemblies and workshops with students of all ages to online learning, staff members are trained in “activating empathy” and encouraging social positivity among students of all walks of life. Soul Shoppe uses research-based and psychologically-backed models of learning to “integrate more love” into everyone’s social inventory.
