Equity Unbound

Community building activities

Equity Unbound has teamed up with OneHE to develop some open educational resources for online community-building

Why is building a sense of community important?

Watch the welcome video below to find out why Equity Unbound are creating and curating free community building activities for educators.

Play Video

How to use these resources

Each of these resources includes a video or text demonstrating or describing the activity or exercise for community-building. We also include descriptive text, slides you can reuse/adapt where relevant, and links to additional resources. We also show you how much time, what kind of resources you need, and different variations on the activity to help you adapt it for your purposes.

Important: Any technique can block some people out, make them feel unwelcomed, or be used in a way that privileges some and makes it harder on others. All of these techniques should be used in conjunction with pedagogies of care and what we call Intentionally Equitable Hospitality.

As you watch/read any of these, please let us know:

If you find that the activity is not hospitable to a certain group.
If you try an adaptation of this activity, or try it as is and have interesting results to share, please contribute your adaptation/reflection.
If you have an activity or resource that you want to contribute.

Coming soon

We will be frequently adding more activities and resources – sign up to the mailing list or follow Equity Unbound / OneHE on Twitter for updates. We are also creating an online community space to make it easier for you to share ideas, experiences and questions.

What activity will you try today?

All activities and resources

Guidance and help

Introductory activities

Liberating Structures

Ongoing engagement

Recommended resources

Setting the tone activities

Warm up activities

Equity Unbound Activity

15% solutions

Discover and focus on what each person has the freedom and resources to do now.

Maha Bali, Jasmina Najjar

Equity Unbound Activity

9 Whys of Liberating Structures

Rapidly clarify for individuals and a group what is essentially important in their work.

Michael Weinraub

Equity Unbound resource

About Video Conferencing

Addressing many of the questions you might have about video conferencing.

Equity Unbound Activity

Alternative Approaches to Grading

Consider different approaches to grading and how they can affect the classroom atmosphere and more!

Maha Bali, Mia Zamora, Jasmina Najjar, Laura Gibbs, Clarissa Sorensen-Unruh, Arley Cruthers

Equity Unbound Activity

Annotate the Syllabus

Annotating the syllabus helps learners to read, make sense of, question, and discuss their learning.

Remi Kalir

Equity Unbound Activity

Appreciative Interviews

To invite students to use their bodies to represent, collaboratively, an image of something that is worth discussing.

Maha Bali, Autumm Caines, Mia Zamora

Equity Unbound Activity

Asynchronous & Synchronous Introductions

For students to share multiple dimensions of themselves, synchronously or asynchronously.

Mia Zamora

Equity Unbound Activity

Authentic Open Letter/Video Addressing Students

Setting a human-centred tone to your class from the beginning of the semester.

Equity Unbound Activity

Cognitive/exam Wrappers for Metacognition

Help students reflect on their exam/assessment performance in order to improve future performance in your course.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound Activity

Collaborative Literature Review Matrix

Create a discourse community whilst also sharpening close reading, research, summarising, paraphrasing, and citation skills.

Jasmina Najjar

Equity Unbound Activity

Collaborative Storytelling

Promote a sense of community and break the ice in class with collaborative storytelling activities.

Jasmina Najjar

Equity Unbound Activity

Conversation Cafe

Engage everyone in making sense of profound challenges. Use to address difficult or confusing topics.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound Activity

Critical Uncertainties

Engage everyone in making sense of profound challenges. Use to address difficult or confusing topics.

Autumm Caines

Equity Unbound Activity

Daily Creates

Provides a space for regular practice of spontaneous creativity through “mini” challenges published every day.

Mia Zamora

Equity Unbound Activity

Estimate workload

Useful tools for estimating workloads and adjusting your plans accordingly.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound Activity

Four Ideas for Checking In

Particularly important during a pandemic, but this is a good way to start any class.

Maha Bali, Mia Zamora

Recommended resource

Getting feedback from students mid-semester

"Why the end of the semester is too late to collect actionable feedback from your students."

Equity Unbound Activity

Gratitude Journal

Support students’ wellbeing by suggesting a daily or periodic practice of gratitude, promote radical self-compassion.

Maha Bali, Nadine Aboulmagd, Hoda Mostafa, Azza Awwad

Equity Unbound Activity

Human Scavenger Hunt

Create positive engagement and ensure centrality of student voices from the first day of class.

Susan D. Blum

Equity Unbound Activity

Imaginary Buffet (or Potluck)

The purpose of this activity is to engage students with each other’s ‘small talk’, by making a game out of active listening.

Maya Hey

Equity Unbound Activity

Introductions: Story of Your Name

The purpose of this activity is to get to know people’s name on a more personal level through storytelling.

Patrice Prusko

Recommended resource

Karen Ray Costa’s Trauma-Aware Teaching Checklist

This checklist has been prepared for higher educators as a tool to reflect on their teaching and courses, regardless of modality.

Equity Unbound Activity

Language Portrait

Reflect on language experiences with your students and share biographical information.

Francesca Helm

Recommended resource

Loglines

A fun, text-based way to warm up or cool down a session or topic.

Equity Unbound Activity

Meditation

Meditation provides an opportunity for students to relax before or after teaching.

Equity Unbound Activity

Office Hour Scheduling via Google Calendar

Particularly helpful to facilitate the scheduling of office hours with students for teachers who need to meet students individually in short timeslots.

Fikry Boutros

Equity Unbound Activity

Pass the Ball & How Do You Make Rice?

The purpose of this activity is to engage in a discussion about identity and difference.

Autumm Caines

Equity Unbound Activity

Pass the Paper

Create an opportunity for your students to connect through writing.

Sarah Silverman

Equity Unbound Activity

Pop-up Psychogeography Journey Journal

To invite students to use their bodies to represent, collaboratively, an image of something that is worth discussing.

Sarah-Jane Crowson

Equity Unbound Activity

PowerPoint Karaoke

Engage students in improv presenting, and enhance oral presentation skills in a light and humorous way.

Maha Bali, Jasmina Najjar, Hoda Mostafa

Equity Unbound Activity

Purpose to Practice

Use the Purpose to Practice structure with students to co-develop “community guidelines” for the class.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound Activity

Room 101

Sharpen logical reasoning and debating skills. Create discussion.

Jasmina Najjar

Equity Unbound Activity

Self-assessment Tool (of social justice in your teaching) from DISCs (Disciplines Inquiring into Societal Challenges)

Gauge your level of competence and comfort in the themes of gender-consciousness, interculturalism, and community, both in their individual pedagogical practices and wider academic engagements.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound Activity

Share an object from home

Encourage students to share something of themselves.

Equity Unbound Activity

Simple Metacognitive Activities

Some simple questions that can help students develop their metacognitive learning skills.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound resource

Some safety considerations for online community building

Setting a human-centered tone to your class from the beginning of the semester.

Kate Bowles

Equity Unbound Activity

Spiral Journal

Promote focus and reflection while allowing individuals to compose responses thoughtfully and calmly in writing.

Mia Zamora

Equity Unbound Activity

Start/Stop/Continue

Use this activity to help students to reflect on what's working for them and how to identify actions that can be taken to make improvements.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound Activity

Structured Dialogues

This pair or trio activity is ideal for reflection and also to practice focused listening.

Sherri Spelic

Equity Unbound Activity

Studio visits

Bring in external speakers into your classroom via a virtual “studio visit”, an informal discussion with one or two external guests.

Mia Zamora

Equity Unbound Activity

Surrealist Free Drawing Introductions

Creative take on doing intros that can help students to know one another and challenges perfection paralysis.

Autumm Caines

Equity Unbound Activity

Survey students early in the semester: Pre-Course Survey

Use a pre-course survey to get to know your students early on in the semester.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound Activity

Teaching Ethics with Theatre of the Oppressed and Liberating Structures

Engage everyone in making sense of profound challenges. Use to address difficult or confusing topics.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound Activity

Theater of the Oppressed: Opposites

Warming up before class or after a break in a longer class. Encouraging use of the body, refreshes students’ bodies and minds.

Tina Pippin

Equity Unbound Activity

Theatre of the Oppressed: Image Theatre

To invite students to use their bodies to represent, collaboratively, an image of something that is worth discussing.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound Activity

Thick Greetings

Try out a slower and more deliberate opportunity for everyone to introduce themselves.

Maha Bali, Mia Zamora, Autumm Caines, Laura Gibbs

Equity Unbound Activity

Third Places for Ongoing Community Building

Creating semi-formal, semi-synchronous spaces outside of class time for students to socialize with each other.

Maha Bali

Equity Unbound Activity

Tiny Demons/Drawing Monsters

Help people express and face their fears in a way that can help reduce stress and anxiety.

Lyse Edwards

Equity Unbound Activity

Tiny Tales

Encourage short, focused storytelling, easy to share with others, writing stories in 100 words (or fewer), or 6 words or 2 sentences, etc.

Laura Gibbs

Recommended resource

Torrey Trust’s Technology is not the solution to cheating

This is a useful infographic for thinking through how to build trust and reduce cheating in your courses - recognising that technology will not solve your problems.