Venecia: Welcome back UDL explorers!
Heidi: To our BCcampus UDL Challenge series.
Venecia: My name is Venecia
Heidi: and I’m Heidi.
Venecia: Our next challenge in the series is to design an activity that builds community in your class. Heidi, why is this important?
Heidi: Well, building community is vital to increasing engagement in our classes, right? Students feel way more engaged when they feel a part of the class and they feel valued.
Venecia: For sure. So this is connected to the UDL principle of engagement and specifically fostering collaboration and community. Heidi, is there something that you like to do in your class that builds community?
Heidi: Yeah, actually, sometimes I use an activity called What’s Going On In This Picture. And so I put up an interesting picture and I get students into groups or breakout rooms
and they work together on what they think is happening in the picture.
Venecia: That sounds like fun. So I like to do virtual escape rooms with different cohorts. When I teach organizational behavior, it’s a great opportunity for students to learn the course concepts and to meet new friends. They always tell me that they have a lot of fun. And I can tell you, Heidi, my students are much smarter than I am because I have not managed to get out of that virtual escape room yet.
Heidi: Well, I hope you get out soon, but that sounds like a lot of fun. Yes. And I’m sure many of you have great ideas around building community in your courses and so the challenge for you this time is to share an activity that you’re currently using or maybe one that you’d like to try in the future.
Venecia: Yeah, and we have some examples, useful links and other information below.
Heidi: Happy exploring. See you next time. Bye.