How Do I Foster a Sense of Belonging in the Classroom?
A sense of belonging develops when students perceive that they are accepted, respected, and legitimate members of a learning community. Belonging does not require every student to feel equally comfortable at every moment, nor does it mean lowering expectations or avoiding challenges. Students can struggle, receive critical feedback, make mistakes, and encounter demanding material while still feeling that they can grow and succeed at NECO.
The following are small and intentional techniques that can help create those conditions.
Help Students Feel Recognized
Knowing a student’s name is one of the simplest ways to communicate that the student is recognized as an individual rather than an anonymous member of the class. In a large class, however, learning and consistently recalling every student’s name may not be realistic but you might try some of the following strategies:
- Ask students to state their names when interacting with you early in the semester.
- Use students’ names when responding to questions or continuing a conversation.
- Try to learn and use names naturally through office hours, labs, small-group activities, and repeated interactions.
- Use preferred names and make an effort to pronounce them correctly.
- If you are unsure how to pronounce someone’s name, ask rather than repeatedly avoiding it.
In a large course, recognition can also occur without knowing every student’s name. Refer back to questions or ideas students have contributed, acknowledge students when they arrive or interact with you, remain available before or after class, and show interest when students approach you individually.
Avoid allowing the size of the class to turn communication entirely one-directional. Small moments of individual interaction can counteract the anonymity students sometimes experience in a large lecture environment.
Communicate that Students are Expected to Succeed
Students continually interpret signals about whether they are capable of succeeding in a course. Faculty can communicate high expectations while simultaneously reinforcing confidence that students can meet them. For example:
- “This is a difficult concept, and I don’t expect you to understand all of it immediately. We are going to build it in stages.”
- “Many students find this skill challenging initially. That is why we are going to practice it several times.”
- “My expectation is that everyone in this class can develop this capability, although you may not all get there at the same pace.”
These statements normalize the process of learning without minimizing the standard students are expected to reach.
Normalize Difficulty
Optometric education is challenging. Students are developing a large and complex knowledge base while simultaneously learning to integrate that knowledge into clinical reasoning, technical skills, and professional practice. At some point, every student will encounter material or skills that are difficult for them to master.
Faculty can help students understand that difficulty is a normal part of developing expertise rather than evidence that they do not belong in the profession. This is particularly important when students encounter a topic that appears to come easily to their peers or receive a disappointing assessment result. In these moments, students may interpret “I don’t understand this yet” as “I’m not capable of doing this.”
Avoid statements that frame difficulty as a personal flaw or a test of whether someone belongs:
- “That should be obvious by now.”
- “You learned this in undergrad.”
- “This is the easy part.”
Even when intended humorously or as motivation, these statements can communicate that struggling is unusual and that capable students should already understand the material. They may also make students less willing to ask questions or seek assistance when they need it.
Instead, acknowledge the challenge while maintaining confidence in students’ ability to improve:
- “This is a difficult concept, and it often takes time before the pieces come together. Let’s work through it again.”
- “If this isn’t making sense yet, let’s identify where the reasoning is breaking down.”
- “Students often struggle to distinguish these conditions initially. Let’s focus on the findings that are most useful for telling them apart.”
When students can experience challenge, mistakes, and corrective feedback without interpreting them as evidence that they do not belong, they are more likely to remain engaged, ask for help, and continue doing the difficult work required to develop expertise.
Treat Mistakes as Part of Learning
Students are less likely to participate when every incorrect answer is met with judgment or criticism. When a student answers incorrectly, respond in a way that keeps the intellectual work moving.
- “Walk me through how you arrived at that answer”
- “What led you to that conclusion?”
- “I can see why that finding led you toward that diagnosis. What other finding might make us reconsider?”
This approach helps build an environment where students are comfortable sharing their thoughts, promoting participation and learning.
Make Participation Accessible
Students differ in how they engage most readily with learning activities. Some can quickly formulate and communicate a response, while others benefit from additional time to process information, organize their thinking, consult relevant material, or discuss an idea before committing to an answer.
If participation relies primarily on a single mode, such as rapid questioning and voluntary responses, the instructor may receive input from only a small portion of the class. Providing multiple ways to engage allows more students to participate actively in the learning process and gives instructors a better picture of student understanding.
Consider varying how students are asked to participate:
- Individual reflection: Give students time to think, solve a problem, analyze a case, or write a response before moving forward.
- Think-pair-share: Allow students to develop an initial response independently, compare their thinking with a peer, and refine it through discussion.
- Polling: Ask all students to make a prediction, select an answer, indicate confidence, or make a decision.
- Small-group activities: Have students collaboratively analyze information, solve problems, compare alternatives, or develop a response.
- Written responses: Use brief prompts, shared documents, discussion boards, exit questions, or other methods that allow students to articulate their thinking in writing.
- Whole-class discussion: Use discussion to surface different perspectives, reasoning approaches, questions, and misconceptions.
- Preparation before class: Provide a question, case, problem, or discussion prompt in advance so students can begin thinking before they are asked to engage with it in class.
When possible, also give students advance notice about how they will be expected to participate. If students will analyze a case in groups, debate alternatives, solve a problem, demonstrate a skill, or contribute to a discussion, tell them ahead of time. Knowing what will be expected allows students to prepare cognitively and can reduce uncertainty about the activity itself. This can be particularly helpful for students who need additional processing or preparation time.
Explain the Why
Students are more likely to experience course requirements as meaningful when they understand their purpose. When possible, explain why students are being asked to complete an activity, and how it is related to their larger goals (i.e., becoming an optometrist).
“We are doing these short cases because recognizing the diagnosis is only one part of the skill. I want you to practice explaining what evidence led you there.”
“This assignment asks you to revise your work because responding to feedback is an important part of developing clinical judgment.”
Making the purpose visible helps students see themselves as participants in a coherent learning process rather than arbitrary requirements.
Use Diverse Examples
The examples, cases, images, and scenarios used in a course implicitly communicate whose experiences are considered typical or relevant. By incorporating more variety and diversity, you can help a student see dimensions of their identity and lived experience in the work. When appropriate, incorporate variation in:
- Age
- Race and ethnicity
- Sex and gender
- Socioeconomic status
- Family and social circumstances
- Disability
- Language and communication needs
- Cultural practices
- Access to care
- Health literacy
IMPORTANT: Representation should be authentic rather than decorative. Patient characteristics should be included thoughtfully and should never reinforce stereotypes or feel pejorative.
Normalize Seeking Support
Students sometimes interpret needing assistance as evidence that they do not belong, particularly when they think everyone else is succeeding independently. Make an effort to normalize the use of support, treating it as a natural and expected course of action.
For example, instead of presenting office hours, tutoring, or other resources primarily as remediation, describe them as ordinary components of successful learning:
“If you’re wrestling with this concept, come talk with me. That’s exactly what office hours are for.”
“Using feedback and seeking assistance are part of learning this material, not signs that you aren’t capable of learning it.”
It’s also important to make this a regular part of the conversation. Simply listing resources in the syllabus or mentioning them on the first day of class isn’t enough; mention them in parts of the course that are historically difficult for students.
Provide Constructive Feedback
Feedback can influence whether students interpret poor performance as a temporary stage of learning or evidence that they lack ability. Effective feedback identifies both the problem (descriptive) and the path toward improvement (prescriptive).
Example of Good Constructive Feedback:
“You identified several relevant findings, but your differential does not yet account for X. On the next case, explicitly identify which major findings support and contradict each diagnosis before selecting your leading diagnosis.”
This framing of the feedback maintains the standard of performance while making improvement actionable.
Avoid Making Assumptions
Academic and professional environments contain many unwritten expectations. Some students arrive already familiar with conventions such as how to approach faculty, use office hours, prepare for exams, communicate professionally, seek mentoring, or respond to feedback. Others may encounter these expectations for the first time here at NECO.
Whenever an expectation matters, consider making it explicit rather than assuming students already know it. Explaining the “rules” of the environment does not lower expectations. It ensures that success does not depend on social/professional awareness.
Ask Students About Their Experience
Students are more likely to feel that they belong in a learning community when they believe their perspectives are heard, respected, and taken seriously. Periodically asking students about their experience also provides valuable information about aspects of the course that may not be visible to the instructor.
Look for informal opportunities to ask students about their experience. When meeting with individual students or small groups, ask what is helping them learn, what they are finding most challenging, or where they are encountering unnecessary barriers. These conversations can provide insights that may not emerge through formal course evaluations.
It is also useful to solicit feedback from the class as a whole while there is still time to respond to it. End-of-course evaluations provide important information for future course improvement, but students completing them may never experience the changes that result from their feedback. A brief mid-course check-in, such as an anonymous Canvas survey, gives students an opportunity to reflect on their experience while allowing you to make appropriate adjustments during the current course.
Consider asking only a few focused questions, such as:
- What is helping you learn most effectively in this course?
- What is currently making learning more difficult than it needs to be?
- Is there anything about the organization, assignments, or classroom activities that could be clearer?
- What is one change that would help you engage more effectively with the course?
- What is one thing you would recommend that we continue doing?
Most importantly, close the feedback loop. After reviewing the responses, briefly tell students what you heard and what you plan to do with that information. For example:
“Several of you indicated that it is difficult to tell which concepts are most important in the weekly readings. Beginning next week, I will provide three guiding questions with each reading.”
It is equally appropriate to explain when you are not making a requested change:
“Several students suggested reducing the number of cases. I am going to keep the current number because repeated case practice is important to the objectives of the course, but I am going to provide more time to work through them before we discuss the answers.”