Building Community and Belonging in a Distance Learning Environment
A positive school culture bursts at the seams with student engagement and community. When schools in Ontario closed on March 14th, 2020 a huge piece of the community puzzle ceased to exist. In this presentation, I will talk about the four parts of an individual’s self – physical, emotional, social, and spiritual – a teaching and concept I have learned from Dr Nicole Bell at Trent University. In a more traditional school setting teachers are adept at fostering and cultivating these four pieces, however, with digital learning and loss of physical closeness, it is more challenging to do. I will share a strategy that I have used to bring back the sense of belonging and community in a group of students through the creation of virtual clubs. I will talk about the power of Microsoft Teams, Global Competencies, and STEAM challenges as vehicles to give students purpose, belonging, and community connections that can be lost in the virtual world.