Building Positive Online Classroom Communities

To teach effectively online, you need a classroom community. Without fostering a sense of community, it can be challenging to keep students engaged and replicate the sense of togetherness that an offline classroom can have. This generally leads to a sense of isolation, facilitating a lack of motivation on behalf of students, who will be content to log in to the class and do the bare minimum, waiting to close the lesson. Good collaboration can help foster a sense of classroom community, and we provide some advice to help you do just that.

Creating classroom ‘norms’

When classes start at the beginning of the school year, there is often a set of rules, norms and expectations established. Virtual teaching should be no different, and this can help make sure your students are engaged and understand what you expect of them.