“Getting to Know You” activities are an important consideration when establishing social presence in courses. My students are educators and learning experience designers so my “getting to know you” activities are sometimes design oriented — serving two important goals: social presence and design thinking/exploration. In addition these activities serve as low-stakes opportunities for orienting students to various tools and platforms (e.g., Flipgrid). I use these activities at the start of a semester as well as throughout the course for reconnection purposes because I don’t think one getting-to-know-you activity during the first week of a course is sufficient. Establishing social presence and building relationships and community requires multiple opportunities to share and connect.
Icebreaker Activities.
Icebreaker activities are quick-and-easy ways to reconnect. I really like this resource from Lansing Community College.
Five-Minute Conversation.
During the first few weeks of a semester, I invite students to participate in a five-minute conversation (via Zoom or telephone). The only agenda for the conversation is to see each other smile (if via Zoom) and hear each other laugh. I also use it as an opportunity to ask, “Is there anything you’d like to make sure we address during the conversation regarding the syllabus, projects, course structure, or anything else?” Although I do receive questions about the assignments, the majority of the conversation focuses on the big-picture goals of the course and how those goals fit into the student’s personal and professional agendas — a very individualized discussion. In addition, we talk about work and families. Along the way we hear each other laugh without even trying. I conclude the five-minute conversations — which can end up being more like 15–20 minutes — by sharing how invaluable the time has been in terms of getting to know the student a bit better and creating a foundation for trust and collaboration — and I promote that it is easy for us to set up future live conversations throughout the course. Most students indicate how pleasantly surprised they are at having a Zoom/telephone conversation with me (not part of their typical experience with their professors), and how much more connected they feel to me and the course as a result. I’ve found these early Zoom/telephone conversations lead to subsequent Zoom/telephone conversations with students for purposes of project brainstorming, content clarification, and formative feedback — and in a much more efficient and personal way than if we had participated in the same exchanges via email or Canvas discussion.
Superhero Powers.
I invite students to respond to the following prompt:
What are your superhero powers? What is your superhero moniker? And, how do your superhero powers help you in life?
Using Flipgrid, Voicethread, or other platform, students record their responses. Their creative responses are so much fun…and the responses help us learn about the assets each of us have and contribute to our collective learning community.
Virtual Paper Bag.
For this activity, I invite students to pick five items that represent who they are and what is important to them. They pull together visual representations of their five items for a virtual paper bag (lately I use Google Slides, and each person organizes their five photos/visuals on their slide). Once everyone has posted their virtual paper bag, students review each other’s, and discuss the meaning of the items. Students learn about each other’s passions, values, families, and the like; they learn about differences and similarities; and they learn each other’s stories. This activity helps students feel more connected because of the personal content of the photos and emotion involved in telling their stories.
Soundtrack of Our Lives.
Music is really important to me, so this is one of my favorite activities. I invite students to create a playlist of six songs: two that represent their past, two that represent their present, and two that represent their planned/hoped for future. Students share their playlists <typically they create either a Spotify playlist, or a playlist using YouTube videos>. They then jump in and ask questions about the songs to figure out why certain songs were selected. You can learn a lot about someone from the music they select, and it is fun to watch the connections based on shared experiences (e.g., My cousin also used that song at their wedding reception! That song was so popular when I was in high school. I saw them at Red Rocks! etc.) and the a-has (e.g., You like opera! I thought I was the only one!). <Another activity I like to do related to music is create a collaborative playlist. I set up a collaborative playlist in Spotify and invite students to contribute songs — here is an example.
Design Your Personal Logo.
For this activity I ask students to first reflect on the following questions:
- What are your three main strengths as a designer?
- What are your favorite colors?
- What designers and/or design professions do you love?
- What design work do you enjoy?
- What kind of work do you want to do in the future?
Then I invite students to design a logo for themselves that is clearly informed by their reflection:
For design inspiration I suggest you check out this brief article with great examples of logo design — Designer Spends a Year Creating Logos that Subtly Reveal the Meaning of Words — and think about how your logo design can reveal the essence of you! You can hand-draw your logo (my suggestion), take a photo, or create it on the computer or online using any number of available tools; there isn’t just one way to approach this. 🙂
Students post their logos with their response to the reflection questions. And then respond to everyone’s logos. [Note: Students then use their logos as part of their “signatures” for all subsequent submissions. In the final week of the course, students revisit their logos and redesign them, applying what they have learned about design during the course to their redesign.]
Picasso Self Portraits.
Throughout the course, I share tools / applications I think help spark creativity and also may be useful to course projects and beyond. This is one I’ve tapped several times — Picassohead. For this “getting to know you” activity, I invite students to use Picassohead to create self-portraits. For directions, I provide:
Please share your self-portraits created in Picassohead; if you prefer to create something besides a self-portrait, that’s fine too. [Note: Picassohead uses Flash, so if you don’t have it installed and don’t want it installed feel free to be inspired by Picasso and hand-draw your own :-)] In terms of capturing your creation, I use Snagit to take a screenshot. You could also take a photo with your phone and post the photo.
Again, it is fun to see what people create and I don’t really do much in terms of facilitation because the students jump in and respond.
Something Just for You.
This was an activity I used this spring while we were in quarantine and dealing with so many challenges.
With all that is happening, are you taking time for yourself to reduce worry and anxiety? I tend to be negligent in this area but this past weekend my family and I scheduled a ‘formal’ dinner where we dressed up and Zoomed with other family during our respective dinners. We also read out loud to each other, played ping-pong, and did an online yoga class. These activities definitely helped me…I needed to step away from the computer and focus on family and myself. I was encouraged to do this after reading this Free Guide — Free Guide to Living with Worry and Anxiety Amidst Global Uncertainty. For this week’s activity I’d like to keep it simple — what are you doing to take care of yourself? I’m looking for inspiration and ideas, and I’m thinking you are as well. Please share below. 🙂
With very little facilitation on my part students shared how and what they were doing. There was a lot of idea-sharing and support.
Day in the Life. (Or, Week in the Life.)
For one week I invite students to share a photo they take on that day, capturing different things going on in their lives. I also participate. With each photo I ask them to include a caption. If using Instagram I ask them to also include a class hashtag — for example #INTE5333dayinthelife; this enables to group to search on “#INTE5333dayinthelife” and see all of our photos, and add comments. If using Flickr or Padlet, students simply post their photos to the designated course group or board.
I like this activity because it encourages students to take photos (a skill of what I want them to develop as designers), and because it is fun to see all of our typical days activities as a way to further connect with each other.
Weekly Photo Challenge.
Each week I invite students to contribute a photo that represents a particular course concept to a digital photo collection. <I use Instagram, Flickr, or Padlet for this activity.> For example, in a course I teach on using social networking/media for teaching and learning, the concepts were: social (Week 1), privacy (Week 2), tweet (Week 3), community (Week 4), portfolio (Week 5), connecting (Week 6), being bold (Week 7), peer support (Week 8), accomplishment (Week 9), network/networked (Week 10), learning space (Week 11), supportive (Week 12), collaboration (Week 13), reflection (Week 14), and winter (Week 15). These sharings again lead to conversation and connection.
Aladdin’s Lamp.
I invite students to respond to the following prompt (or a variation of this prompt, depending on the audience) in using a video capture platform (Flipgrid, Voicethread):
The myth of Aladdin and the Lamp is well-known. It’s hard not to imagine what you would do with three wishes, and how best to craft the wishes to make sure you achieve the desired outcome…indeed, that’s the rub! Most of you know each other from previous courses, but I don’t know you yet. So, instead of asking you to rehash what you already know about each other for my benefit, let’s try something different…and hopefully you will learn something new about each other in the process. You now have access to Aladdin’s Lamp, and the genie is awaiting your three wishes. Our collective wishes have to be different, so as you consider your three, be sure to check to see what others have shared as their three wishes—no duplication allowed! 🙂
One Extra Hour.
I invite students to consider what they would do if they had an extra hour in the day, and why. Through this sharing (and, I participate too), students learn a lot about the priorities and values of their peers while also learning about everyone’s families and work situations. I tend to use video (Flipgrid, VoiceThread) because I find it helpful to hear and see everyone to feel more connected.