Engaging Statewide Students: How to Build Relationships Across Physical Boundaries in Connect & Online Courses

Our students are living in various locations and attending class through a variety of course delivery methods. We will discuss creating meaningful relationships between students and faculty across distant locations. These relationships are essential for retention of students and increased quality of life for faculty members. Traveling between locations may not be an option, however, there are methods that can be used to acknowledge our diverse student body, increase engagement, and help to build relationships. An announcement at the beginning of class or online about the rain in Blanding or the snow in Vernal is a simple way of recognizing that there are students in the class outside of Logan, Utah. True relationship building, however, requires back-and-forth discourse and incorporating elements outlined in the scholarship of teaching and learning. We will discuss how we build a community of inquiry by sharing individual and group experiences and develop authentic relationships in our Community Engaged Courses. We will provide example rubrics for students’ guided reflections and discuss innovative add-ins to Google Slides include Pear Deck for increase engagement in courses. We will focus on concrete examples from our Community-Engaged Connect and online courses that focus on relationship building