GUEST POST: 9 Tips for Enhancing Connections During COVID-19

November 3, 2020

We’re less than two months from the end of a tremendously challenging year—but for teachers across the country, the challenges will remain long after we ring in the new year. Many will still be teaching students virtually or in a hybrid format. Others are returning to physical school buildings, but with so many new issues to confront—from safety precautions to pandemic-related student trauma—teachers may find themselves struggling to define and adapt to the “new normal.”

In trying times like these, authentic and supportive human connections can be the lifeline that teachers and students need to get by. Today we’re bringing you nine practical tips for strengthening these connections, developed by Dyane Lewis Carrere (author of The Re-Set Process: Trauma-Informed Behavior Strategies) and her sister, elementary educator Jennifer Frasher, M.Ed. Bookmark and share this post for concrete ways to engage students, create and spread more joy, and encourage supportive peer connections during the ongoing pandemic.

We, along with our students, miss many things from our pre-COVID lives—but perhaps nothing more than being close with other human beings. We long for connection, and our bodies’ physiological systems actually register what we have lost as a result of the reduction in human touch, the fewer number of smiles seen and given, and the reduced social interactions we have experienced over these past months. What has changed biochemically during these relationship-starved days? Our bodies may be short on two critical neurotransmitters: dopamine and oxytocin. Dopamine is that feel-good chemical that boosts our mood and motivation and allows us to better focus. It also helps us to regulate our movements and emotions. Oxytocin, the bonding hormone, can enhance our sense of well-being and connectedness with others.

Connection deprivation can leave us and our students more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and other illnesses related to stress. That is not the end of the story, however, and educators everywhere are deliberately making the most of the connection opportunities that are available—regardless of their teaching context. Here are nine strategies you can try with your own students, whether you’re teaching virtually or in person:

1. Increase the positive use of names. Our names call us into connection with others. Today, educators are striving to use students’ names in positive ways more than ever before. In your classroom, be sure to take time for greetings before academics, include student names when acknowledging their input, and encourage students to call each other by name. Actively support your students to identify their preferred name and take care to use it consistently.

2. Move in synchronicity with one another. When we move in synchronicity with others, oxytocin is released, and we feel a bond with them. If you’re teaching on-site, you can employ strategies such as “mirror greetings” where one person mirrors the other and then roles are switched. You might also try movement/brain breaks using patterned dances done in parallel lines 6+ feet apart with students making the same set of motions. In virtual settings, you can have students mirror your movements (e.g., holding fingers up to represent a number) as part of instruction.

3. Make it visual. A stressed brain relies more on visual information. Knowing this, make sure you create visual representations of your classroom communities to enhance connectedness (e.g., a circle of everyone’s handprints, a graffiti wall created by the students, a “quilt” created by having students contribute squares with images or words that reflect them). These visual representations from the physical classroom can be imported into the virtual classroom—try using them as the background for virtual instruction.

4. Create classroom and cohort continuity. As students and their teachers move between various settings (virtual, physical building, hybrid), there are myriad challenges, including keeping a sense of continuity for students. You may find that you need to assure your students that the class is still their home base—even if that class is being split up into different cohorts or taught by several different teachers.

5. Embed service. Social science tells us that we like people who help us— and that we like people even more if we help them! Toward that end, both elementary and secondary educators have been giving “jobs” to students, even within the virtual classroom. Try assigning jobs like timekeeper, question caller, poll tracker, and even technology de-garbler.

6. Use the power of “touch memory.” When we engage in a motor movement that previously involved touch, our memory of that touch is re-activated. In virtual settings, try holding your hand up so that it is palm out and in front of you, and have students reach out to the screen and “touch” your hand—this will bring forward the memory of high fives in the past.

7. Exude joy. Smile a lot! When we smile at someone, we get a little shot of dopamine. When they see our smile, they get one. When we see their smile, we get yet another.

8. Laugh more. Laughter releases dopamine, increases oxygen flow, and is highly socially contagious. In between instruction and even embedded within instruction, look for ways to create opportunities for your students to laugh.

9. Model resilience and positivity. As hard as it is to summon positivity given the tremendous amount of juggling and worry that is part of today’s teacher world, it’s helpful to deliberately give voice to the good things that exist in virtual and physical environments.

There are so many ways to nurture connection out there in the big, creative world of education. Take care of yourself and you will find that the things that you need to do to care for your community of students will follow.