Supporting Sense of Belonging

We know you’re eager to learn more about sense of belonging and to start prototyping and testing activities at your school. To help you begin, we’ve put together several evidence-based, researcher-designed activities to support student motivation that can be adapted and customized for your campus. 

As with any practice, these activities are meant to serve as a starting point. We encourage you to think carefully about what will work in your context and what may need to be altered.

improving electronic communication

A method for instructors to reach out to students in three different scenarios: 1) when students are absent from class, 2) in response to student emails, and 3) class-wide electronic communications. The protocol involves working in advance to develop supportive messages to send to students, and then identifying ways to adapt the messages according to timing and individual student circumstances. By infusing electronic communication with supportive language, instructors can create a stronger connection with students inside and outside of the classroom.

Group roles and responsibilities

A protocol for faculty to promote effective group collaboration. In this protocol, instructors learn how to assign students key roles and responsibilities for group work in a way that provides the opportunity for each student to contribute to the group and to build conceptual understanding interdependently. By assigning roles and associated responsibilities purposefully, instructors can set norms around how to engage in productive discourse.