Moving to hybrid classrooms creates an even greater challenge for building community. In hybrid classrooms, some students never see each other in person, and some students never see their teachers in person. Project-based learning provides a powerful vehicle for creating a shared learning space, one that makes it clear that all students’ voices are needed and welcome in the classroom. Being flexible and welcoming about how kids choose to participate builds trust as the kids feel valued, welcomed, and accepted.
Students get the opportunity to share parts of themselves through the questions they ask, investigations they design and carry out, and artifacts they develop and present. The more of themselves the students share, the more connections are built.
Here are four strategies to build trust using project-based learning.
USE STUDENTS’ QUESTIONS TO STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS
Teachers build relationships by ensuring that all students—face-to-face and virtual—generate questions about things they’re interested in. This not only encourages participation but also is a low-stress way to help students articulate what they know.
Science co-teachers Susan Zaemish and Tim Reiser hold a genius hour each week in their hybrid classroom. Students select a question that they want to learn about and study. They then research their answers and share their findings in breakout groups, in which half of the students are in person and half are online. Students look forward to having an audience and learning about each other.
When students ask questions, they also share something about their experiences, how they view the world, and what is important to them. Examine questions with that lens to get your students to share more.
It’s helpful to give students a choice not only in what questions they ask but also with how they’re presented. Monique Coulman, a fourth- and fifth-grade teacher, lets her students, whether in person or online, have a choice in communication method: voiced, chat, sticky notes, notebook, voice recording, or typing in the Google doc.
Amy Lazarowicz, a math and science teacher, accomplishes a similar goal by using a “chat blast” for students to share their questions. Each student takes the time they need to write a question, and then Lazarowicz publishes all of her class’s questions at the same time. The goal is to give all of her students time to generate valuable questions without worrying about who answers first. When students generate questions and see those questions become integrated as classroom thinking tools, they feel welcomed as part of the classroom community.
ENHANCE SOCIAL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SCHOOL- AND HOME-BASED STUDENTS
Students who are remote can feel left out of hybrid classrooms. To address this, Susan Zaemish pairs a virtual student with an in-person student, so that one part of the pair is always in the classroom. The students in the classroom handle the materials during the ongoing investigation or building of an artifact, so each day one student is manipulating the design. The virtual students describe and rationalize the changes and decisions they made the previous day and add suggestions for revision. Both partners have to use reasoning to convince their counterpart.
To include remote students in hands-on activities, Zaemish asks partners to collaborate using home materials. For example, when her students were trying to figure out a way to get water to condense (as a model for precipitation), the student at home heated a cup of water in the microwave and then covered the top with ice. Both students watched for condensation.
