To help build inclusive student community, faculty can provide opportunities for students to interact with each other both in and outside of class. This is different from collaborative learning in that the primary goal is helping students make social connections rather than directly impacting learning. This can encourage the growth of peer-support networks and a student-centered learning community. Students who have a community related to their academic pursuits are more likely to persist.

Some suggestions

Break the ice. Use icebreakers to help students get to know each other. But be careful in the choice of activities. The goal is for students to see what they have in common. But some questions--e.g., those that draw out gender, race/ethnic, or class differences--can produce division rather than community.

Facilitate out-of-class connections. Help students connect with their peers outside of class by creating opportunities for them to discuss and meet. For example, facilitate the creation of study groups or special interest groups, and host fun, inclusive social events.

Teach professional behavior. Many students need explicit training on what it means act professionally. Build professionalism into your student culture by teaching students to treat each other with respect, how to disagree productively, and to value diversity.

Examples from the collection

Ice Breaker - Paper Airplanes

Pamela Silvers, Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College

This is an ice-breaker activity you can use early in a course to help students get to know each other in a low risk, fun way.

How to Do It: Students are given templates and instructions on how to build a simple paper airplane. Before making their plane, each student writes on their paper three things about themselves that they are willing to share. It's fun to encourage them to share creative or unexpected things.

They then send their plane off into the classroom, picking up others' planes and flying them. Don't be afraid to let pandemonium reign for a while! Then, have each student pick up a plane that is not their own. The goal, then, is for everyone to find the creator of the plane by introducing themselves to successive individuals, asking only questions pertaining to what's written on the plane. Once everyone has found their plane's creator, have students form a circle. The first person introduces the creator of their plane (their name and the 3 things). Then, that person introduces the creator of their plane, and so on until everyone has been introduced. 

Day One Ice Breakers

Kate Lockwood, St. Paul Academy

This a set of "icebreaker" activities are used on the first day of an introductory programming class to help create a welcoming learning environment for students and to lay the groundwork for discussions about how to be successful in Introductory Computing. I have included student-facing slides, a sign-in handout, and a short paper with tips for implementing these activities.

See more examples

Resources

4_DNA: Motif Finder

Mark D. LeBlanc, Wheaton College (Norton, MA)

This is the fourth of five programming assignments in a semester-long CS-1-like course named DNA to introduce students to programming within the context of genomics: the analysis of DNA within a single cell of an organism. Originally, the course targeted students in the life sciences but it now attracts students across the academy. The goal of these assignments is to prepare students to obtain enough confidence with scripting and associated scientific write-ups to conduct a small computational experiment in a final project.

This programming assignment assumes that you have already located a specific gene (perhaps using some of the software written in the previous assignment) but now you want to investigate the regulatory DNA sequences “upstream” (just prior to or to the left of) that gene. Regulatory (or promoter) sequences in intergenic regions (between the genes) are vitally important in the process of protein production. Promoter motifs (DNA "words") often are repetitive and/or "fuzzy" (variable) DNA sequences upstream of genes. This assignment applies regular expressions to locate certain categories of repetitions (direct and mirror repeats).

Conditionals & Loops

Jay Summet, Georgia Institute of Technology

In this assignment, students compose a variety of functions. Using Python, students create functions that perform a wide range of tasks (from calculating the height of an individual to the manipulation of strings) that emphasize the use of loops.

Conversions/Complex Tip Functions

Jay Summet, Georgia Institute of Technology

In this assignment, students use Pair Programming to compose a collection of functions and a tip calculator. Using Python, students create three functions and a program that calculates the tip for a bill.

Python Functions with Calico Graphics

Jay Summet, Georgia Institute of Technology

In this assignment, students compose functions and develop graphics. Using Python, students practice writing four various functions using a set of criteria, as well as create graphics using the Calico graphics library.

Wrapper classes

Bob Roos, Allegheny College

In this tutorial, students create a program in Java that utilizes wrapper classes. The program must include three ArrayLists (one of type Integer, type Double, and type Character) and it needs to parse values from the ArrayList.

Exam review: classes, methods, etc.

Bob Roos, Allegheny College

In this tutorial, students create a program in Java that covers methods, conditionals, and object-oriented programming. The activity requires students to use the Problem.java file to practice creating an interactive program that accepts user input and then performs some action on that entry. Then, the students must modify methods (such as answerCorrect) to evaluate the user's overall performance for answering questions correcting on the quiz/interactive program.

More about loops: "while" loops

Bob Roos, Allegheny College

In this tutorial, students create a program in Java that uses a while loop. The program must accept user input and then evaluate whether or not the value entered by the user is too high or too low. The program must continue to loop until the user enters the correct value.

Loops: "for"-loops

Bob Roos, Allegheny College

In this tutorial, students create a program in Java that utilizes the 'for' loop. The program must execute a series of actions, such as finding the product of all integers from 1 to 25, print the average grade for five (5) grade value (from 0 to 4) entries, and one additional loop application (as chosen by the student).

Classes and constructors

Bob Roos, Allegheny College

In this tutorial, students create a program that implements a class. Using Java, students must edit existing files (included) to create new variables, assign new values, and construct new objects.

If-statements; trivia questions

Bob Roos, Allegheny College

In this tutorial, students create a quiz. Using conditional statements (if) in Java, students must create a program that accepts user input, evaluates the entry against a specific value, and prints an appropriate output response.

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