Community in the Classroom

Research prior to the COVID-19 pandemic has heavily supported the importance of a classroom environment in which students feel as if they belong. A sense of belonging and inclusion from one’s peers is a basic human need and has been found to increase a student’s engagement in class and, in turn, their academic achievement. As students return to in-person learning, deficits in social and emotional skills of students have been the focus of many teachers in the field, stressing the need for strategies that foster relationships in the classroom. This study was conducted to test whether implementing different community building activities weekly, in addition to the traditional ice breakers used during the first week of school, provided increased benefits for student sense of belonging, sense of engagement, and achievement in the tenth grade life science classroom. The activities used in this study were developed to help students get to know one another and embrace their own individuality. The results of this study found that while student belonging and engagement survey scores did not significant increase from the community building activities conducted, student sense of belonging and engagement did seem to improve based on student interviews. Survey responses were subjective as opposed to concrete achievement scores. That being said, student achievement was found to increase significantly from the implemented community building activities throughout the course of the study.