{"id":7861,"date":"2019-01-23T03:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T09:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/fctl\/?p=7861"},"modified":"2019-01-23T03:00:23","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T09:00:23","slug":"building-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/2019\/01\/23\/building-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by &#8211; <strong>Blanca Alvarado<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-7862\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.austincc.edu\/fctl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/132\/2019\/01\/BlancaAlvarado.jpg?resize=224%2C232\" alt=\"\" width=\"224\" height=\"232\" \/>Building community is an important component of my teaching. I use various methods in my teaching that allow students to interact with each other in such a way that by the end of the semester many end up becoming good friends. For instance, interactive ice-breakers, large group discussions, structured small group discussions, role playing, service learning, and other activities that focus on creating a sense of community. One activity that has been particularly effective in building community this semester is a brief \u201ccheck-in\u201d where I dedicate the first ten minutes of each class to form small groups of 3 members where they discuss the same topic each time; students discuss how they are growing their well being (social, emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual) and the benefits and challenges to doing this.<\/p>\n<p>New groups are formed each class, so that students are able to interact with as many fellow classmates as possible, by the end of the semester. I end the activity by asking 3 volunteers to share what they heard someone else say that resonated with them. The \u201ccheck-in\u201d serves as an opportunity for students to not only share with each other the benefits and challenges to practicing \u201cwell-being,\u201d but also allows them to practice their listening skills. I find that this activity creates an environment that encourages students to be engaged and interactive with each other throughout the class session and semester, and as a result, part of a community that is invested in everyone\u2019s well-being and input.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by &#8211; Blanca Alvarado Building community is an important component of my teaching. I use various methods in my teaching that allow students to interact with each other in such a way that by the end of the semester many end up becoming good friends. For instance, interactive ice-breakers, large group discussions, structured small group [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-written-by-faculty"],"acf":{"carousel_content":null},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instruction.austincc.edu\/tledupdates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}