How to develop classrooms high in relational capacity

Educators and staff must provide safe, welcoming, and inclusive learning environments as they start to rebuild trust and re-engage students. Instructional practices to engage students and promote group cohesiveness can include:

Inclusive room design: Highlight the interests and backgrounds of students. Ensure the room is inclusive to all students by paying attention to the desk/table arrangement and what is in the visual field of students. Avoid linear rows of individual desks as much as possible; instead, group desks in small clusters of four or have tables with four students.
Purposeful themes: Create a unit theme or a year-long theme to focus the intent of the class lesson each day. This can help keep students connected to a shared vision and remind them why everyone is there and where they are going.
Mutual accountability: Collaboratively creating a class mission statement and social contract can enable students to begin feeling a shared responsibility for the success of all of their classmates.
Whole-class interactions: Activities that involve the entire class — for example, using call-and-response with a short phrase like "College Ready" or specific hand claps to recognize achievement — can build unity and community. Collaborative structures among students increase learning as well, so leverage them to ensure students are also establishing relational capacity among themselves.
Group events and traditions: Shared experiences are one of the most powerful tools to build relational capacity, and can include daily rituals and traditions or group get-togethers and community service.

Building on a foundation of relational capacity, educators can foster classroom environments that will support all students in recovering from the learning losses of COVID-19. Students will be able to participate in deep inquiry and challenge each other’s thinking, all within a context of trust and safety. And what is perhaps most important after a collective trauma like the pandemic, educators will be able to help disconnected students re-engage with school to create interactive, interdependent learning communities.

Instant Insights /

5 steps to rebuild relational capacity after COVID-19

Related Stories

Recommended For You