{"id":11621,"date":"2024-02-27T15:11:28","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T20:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/?page_id=11621"},"modified":"2025-02-19T11:31:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T16:31:05","slug":"help-students-form-peer-connections","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/help-students-form-peer-connections\/","title":{"rendered":"Help Students Form Peer Connections"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><em><strong>Social connections support well-being, belonging, and student success.<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This week\u2019s \u201cBe a Strong Student\u201d message asks students to <strong>\u201cMake [Their] Own Community,\u201d<\/strong> recognizing the multiple benefits that come from socialization and making connections with others, from general well-being to college success. Students who are connected to others feel they belong and are more successful; see more at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/foster-belonging-and-cultivate-scholars\/\">Foster Belonging<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a fall 24 survey of students, 57.2% (up from 42.5% in spring 24) report that they felt they had done a good job of finding or making community at Montclair. Developing or finding community by joining activities or clubs is daunting for many students. See if you can help!<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Community-building in the classroom<\/span><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Help students get to know each other through<\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/teaching-resources\/pedagogical-strategies-that-support-learning\/build-community-and-foster-belonging\/?\"> icebreakers<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and other activities.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Have students form small groups of<strong> &#8220;essential friends&#8221;<\/strong>:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An essential friend (term adapted from Dr. Milton Fuentes\u2019s concept of a \u201ccritical friend\u201d) is someone in the class a student can contact if they miss class, for example, and who can contact them for information in turn.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Build in activities that enable<strong> students to work with each other<\/strong>, from a simple, short &#8220;turn and talk&#8221; to <\/span>more substantial engagement with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/teaching-resources\/pedagogical-strategies-that-support-learning\/collaborative-learning-groups-and-teams\/?\">\u00a0<\/a><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/teaching-resources\/pedagogical-strategies-that-support-learning\/collaborative-learning-groups-and-teams\/?\">group or team learning<\/a><\/strong>, which really enable students to form connections with other Montclair students<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Try longer-term small groups or, in shifting groups, build an extra two minutes into small group work to allow students to introduce themselves.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">See <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/strategies-for-building-community\/\">Strategies For Building Community<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and<a href=\"http:\/\/montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/teaching-resources\/pedagogical-strategies-that-support-learning\/collaborative-learning-groups-and-teams\/\"> Collaborative Learning<\/a> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">for additional suggestions.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Community Outside the Classroom<\/span><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Promote the<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC6125010\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong> benefits<\/strong> of social connection and community<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Recommend that students schedule time to interact with peers as part of their <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/be-a-strong-student-campaign-instructor-strategy-2-support-time-management\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">time management planning<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Remind students that community building takes <strong>different forms<\/strong>, from actively participating in a club to occasionally meeting with a classmate in the library to review notes.<\/li>\n<li><b>Recommend <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/center-for-student-involvement\/engage\/\"><b>Engage<\/b><\/a><b>:<\/b> Engage is an involvement platform that connects students to organizations and departments, helps them learn about events, and gives them freedom to search and explore campus events, community service opportunities, academic-based clubs, social organizations, and cultural groups, among others.<\/li>\n<li><b>Use Engage<\/b>: Promote your own event, club, or other opportunity through Engage. Simply contact your college\u2019s Engage liaison (list forthcoming) or contact <a href=\"mailto:colemanc@montclair.edu\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Casey Coleman<\/span><\/a>, Assistant Director of Student Involvement. While reaching a potentially larger number of students, using Engage will also provide the opportunity to collect data that can be used in assessment.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Promote events, activities, and organizations<\/strong> you, your department, program, or college are involved with in class or via a message to your students. Let them know what\u2019s going on and explicitly invite them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>For more information or help, please <a href=\"mailto:faculty@montclair.edu\">email<\/a> the Office for Faculty Excellence or <a href=\"https:\/\/montclair-faculty-excellence.libcal.com\/appointments\/\">make an appointment<\/a> with a consultant.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\"><p><em>Last Modified: Wednesday, February 19, 2025 11:31 am<\/em><\/p> CK<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/195\/2022\/08\/CC.png\" alt=\"Creative Commons License\" width=\"80\" height=\"15\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nTeaching Resources by <a rel=\"cc:attributionURL\" href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/\">ÌÇÐÄvlog Office for Faculty Excellence<\/a> is licensed under a <a rel=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Third-party content is not covered under the Creative Commons license and may be subject to additional intellectual property notices, information, or restrictions. You are solely responsible for obtaining permission to use third party content or determining whether your use is fair use and for responding to any claims that may arise.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">Creative Commons CC BY-NC-4.0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Social connections support well-being, belonging, and student success. This week\u2019s \u201cBe a Strong Student\u201d message asks students to \u201cMake [Their] Own Community,\u201d recognizing the multiple benefits that come from socialization and making connections with others, from general well-being to college success. Students who are connected to others feel they belong and are more successful; see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":328,"featured_media":11626,"parent":0,"menu_order":55,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11621","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11621"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13423,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11621\/revisions\/13423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/faculty-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}