Building a Sense of Belonging Amongst Virtual Learners

Schools play an instrumental role in developing good citizenship. The development of good citizenship doesn't start after students graduate but rather its development starts as a toddler at home and continues through all of high school and beyond. The sense of belonging that students feel within the classroom will have a tremendous impact on the sense of belonging they feel when they enter the outside world.

Instead of viewing students as empty vessels that need to be indoctrinated with a certain curriculum or assimilated into a biased system we use their backgrounds as  assets to bring the curriculum to life

Proficient social skills depend heavily on students’ ability to master interpersonal communication. Their ability to exchange thoughts, ideas, feelings and emotions between people both verbally and non-verbally will often influence their sense of belonging. Human beings are social creatures. When students’ social skills improve, we also see an improvement in their social-emotional state, their conduct, and their academic achievement.

Emotional intelligence is measured by the students’ ability to understand, use, and manage their own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.

The most impactful way for educators to obtain a clearer picture of the whole child is to build an engaged academic relationship with each student. An academic relationship is a relationship whereby each teacher and student are both aware of the specific concepts and skills that are being learned, those that will be learned, and those that need to be reinforced.