It was an interesting day: minivan got serviced and we had a couple of kid meltdowns. Finally, Amada has calmed down and we are watching Angela Forde from Michigan State University and Shari L Dann from SUNY present on “Fostering Sense Of Classroom Community Belonging In A Project-Based Course” as part of the 2021 Lilly Conference. Dann and Forde worked together on this project while at Michigan State University. The objectives they stated for the presentation were to identify strategies from the literature for fostering a sense of community and belonging that lead to academic success. Dann talked about elements that help develop a sense of belonging. When collaborative learning is used, Dann mentioned, there is an increase in sense of community, persistence, and academic success. Student-student interaction and collaboration and work on “pedagogies of engagement” by Karl Smith and colleagues were mentioned, including problem-based learning settings.
Dann and Forde conducted their study in a Community Engagement for Sustainability Course (CSUS 301), a required course for all majors in the Community Sustainability Department enrolling 35-40 students. The course has several community partners including the Michigan Farmers Market, Harris Nature Center, and East Lansing Info. Students in the course present their work at the end of the semester. Dann and Forde based their research question on the work of McMillan and Chavis 1986: “analyze the influence of collaborative, whole-group activity (think-pair-share-discuss) on students’ ability to develop a sense of community in a project-based course” was their focus. This resonates with me as I am aiming to do something similar with BIT 295. The study design included a pre and post surveys. The first year (2018) was used to develop the survey by doing a post survey only. In 2019, pre survey, intervention, and post survey. In 2020, they added another cohort but with the pandemic their response rate was small. The first cohort from 2018 with the post survey alone was used to determine if there was a testing effect. This is a nice way of developing a study and using the data during the analysis of cohorts with the intervention and both surveys. The teaching interventions included think-pair-share & mini poster sessions across the whole class, peer-editing of documents (mixed groups), and mixed groups jigsaw activities to discuss project progress. The comparison of the fall of 2018 and 2019 suggested no significant differences and likely no testing effect. Interestingly, in the fall of 2019 when there was an intervention, their satisfaction was the same pre/post and there was a significant difference in students caring about each other and felt more involved with their groups. Dann discussed that their results built on McMillan and Chavis yet there were some differences. They summarized these as four factors that explained 58% of variance:
- Openness to communication and ideas
- Sense of whole-classroom community
- Sense of small group belonging – “I feel comfortable expressing my thoughts and ideas with the group”
- Value of community-engaged experience – “I’m satisfied with the design of this class”
Dann indicated that preliminary evidence suggested that whole classroom collaborative activities “have the potential to enhance whole-class relationships and sense of classroom community in a project-based course” which is important as I consider classroom community and the design of BIT 295 as a blended course. Dann also explained how whole classroom collaborative environments exposed students to speaking in large groups and sharing ideas. One bullet point that I liked was:
It’s the responsibility of the instructor to create an atmosphere that will facilitate the building of a sense of whole-classroom community AND small group sense of belonging.
Shari L. Dann, Lilly Conference, May 2021
Dann explained that they are continuing this research and hope to analyze themes individually (by learner) and the impact of each intervention/class activity. This study again highlights how group sense of belonging can be nurtured using collaborative and problem-based pedagogies to allow learner to frequently interact with others and in small groups. I have enjoyed how team challenges develop a sense of teamwork and also sharing across groups for projects in the High-throughput Discovery course I teach. I hope to learn from this course and research such as that presented by Dann to design student-student interactions in BIT 295 that lead to a greater sense of community.
