Creating and Sustaining a Sense of Belonging
in College Courses
González Ramírez, M Jimena; Mulqueen, Kerri; Zealand, Ruth; Silverstein, Sara; Reina, Christine; Bushell, Shawna; Ladda, Shawn. (2021). Emergency Online Learning: College Students’ Perceptions During the COVID-19 Pandemic. College Student Journal. 55. 29-46.
“Emotional stress was by far the leading reason students considered withdrawing in 2021 — underscoring concerns about student mental health. More than 70 percent of students who thought about leaving college in the six months before the survey cited emotional stress as the most important reason, according to the [Lumina Foundation] report.”
Sahalie Donaldson, “Why Students Quit College During Covid,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 4.20.22
April 2020 survey cited in the Chronicle of Higher Education special report, “Mental Well-Being in the Covid Era”
atomization.
“Mismatch”
“Mismatches are barriers to interacting with the world around us. They are a byproduct of how our world is designed… mismatches are the building blocks of exclusion.” -Kat Holmes
Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, ch. 1
Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, ch. 1
How many students are experiencing college this way?
Flickr user Mike McCullough
6-year graduation rates:
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center
[data for private nonprofit 4-yr colleges, Fall 2016 cohort]
Presence
At its fundamental level, learning is a social endeavor.
Flickr user Ravindar LEGO
Who is in this space? And how?
Who isn’t in this space? And why?
Two Key Concepts from Lev Vygotsky:
“Zone of Proximal Development”
Truly meaningful learning is social, contextual, and collaborative
Community of Inquiry model: There are three types of presence that are vital to maintain in online courses:
Instructor Presence, Cognitive Presence, and Social Presence.
Whiteside’s (2015) Model of Social Presence in Online Learning
Leveraging Climate to Build Presence
Flickr user Vassilis
Control-Value Theory (Pekrun, 2006): Students conduct two distinct appraisals—what can I control, and where/what is the value?
Flickr user Zoltan Voros
Belonging
How do our students know they are welcome?
How do our students know they belong here?
“Belonging Uncertainty”
Students frame the hypothesis: “People like me do not belong here.” Then they look for evidence to support that hypothesis.
They usually find it.
“In fact, Walton and Cohen found that even a single instance of isolation or rejection can undermine sense of belonging.” Strayhorn, 2019
The Hidden Curriculum: “those unstated norms, values, and beliefs transmitted to students through the underlying structure...those norms and values usually not talked about in teachers' statements of objectives or goals, even though such norms and values are implicitly and effectively taught in their classrooms.” (Giroux, 1978)
Flickr user Astrid van Veen
Google Image Search Results for “Professor”
Whose voices get to be heard in our scholarly conversations? Who gets to create knowledge?
“It’s startling as a young person of color to stare down the spines of literacy and note the neat annihilation of most of the world.”
Representation matters.
(but only if cultivated for the right reasons)
Employ pedagogical tools that foster relationships of trust with students.
“People who have a trusting relationship with a teacher or
mentor are better able to take advantage of critical feedback and
other opportunities to learn.” Walton and Cohen (2007)
“The intervention provided students with a narrative that framed social adversity in school as shared and short-lived. This message encouraged students to attribute adversity not to fixed deficits unique to themselves or their ethnic group but to common and transient aspects of the college-adjustment process.”
Interrupting Students’ Narratives
Watson and Cohen’s targeted intervention (2011): essays and video-recorded speech to prospective students to “assist with the transition to college.”
“A brief intervention to buttress feelings of social belonging can have significant effects on a wide range of important outcomes. The social-belonging intervention improved the academic performance, self-reported health, and well-being of ethnic minority students over 3 years. The results suggest that inequality between marginalized and non-marginalized groups arises not only from structural factors but also from concern about social belonging.”
“The intervention provided students with a narrative that framed social adversity in school as shared and short-lived. This message encouraged students to attribute adversity not to fixed deficits unique to themselves or their ethnic group but to common and transient aspects of the college-adjustment process.”
Interrupting Students’ Narratives
Watson and Cohen’s targeted intervention (2011): essays and video-recorded speech to prospective students to “assist with the transition to college.”
“A brief intervention to buttress feelings of social belonging can have significant effects on a wide range of important outcomes. The social-belonging intervention improved the academic performance, self-reported health, and well-being of ethnic minority students over 3 years. The results suggest that inequality between marginalized and non-marginalized groups arises not only from structural factors but also from concern about social belonging.”
Belonging: “Mattering is Motivation”
What imparts a sense of belonging for students? One study of first-year students identified these factors:
“Fidelity” (FIDL) Feedback
Frequent
Give feedback as often as possible, for both low- and high-stakes learning activities. Take the guesswork out of the process for students.�
Immediate
Give this feedback to students as soon as possible after they complete the learning task.�
Discriminating
Be clear about the differences in what constitutes poor, acceptable, and exceptional work.�
Loving
Articulate and deliver feedback compassionately and empathetically.
Flickr user Mike McCullough
6-year graduation rates:
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center
[data for private nonprofit 4-yr colleges, Fall 2016 cohort]
“I’m not college material”
“Give me challenges and give me support, and I can do this.”