What is it?
Icebreaker activities help students prepare to become active participants in a learning community .
Introducing students to online discussions
Gilly Salmon’ s Five Stage Model provides a practical framework for fostering the development of an online learning community . It can be useful to think about the phases in the development of a learning community and icebreaker activities are considered one of the initial activities that can be used to develop a safe learning environment.
Each stage of the model builds upon preceding stages. Stages one and two can be used as guidelines to set the stage for online interaction.
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Providing students with Access and motivation
The first stage of the Five Stage Model promotes the importance of accessing the learning environment to enable students to communicate with others. This sets the stage for online interaction and is the first step towards the development of a learning community.
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Setting up an environment for online socialisation
The second stage of the Five Stage Model involves providing guidance and activities to help students establish ongoing interaction with their peers.
How do I do it?
Students are more likely to participate in online discussions if they feel they are learning in a safe, inclusive environment. Introducing yourself and giving students opportunities to connect with each other can help them build confidence in participating in online discussions. Icebreaker activities are a useful way to initiate discussions and begin the process of building a community among students.
Here are some examples that can be applied to online discussions in the first two stages of the model:
| Stage | Asynchronous | Synchronous |
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Access and motivation
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“Personal introductions” are a simple way for you and your students to get to know each other. You could structure the activity by asking students specific questions that combine both personal and information about students’ expectations or past studies. | “The interview” – Pair students or put students in small groups (for larger classes) and get students to interview each other. Prepare a few questions for students to ask each other. Ask students to report back on their findings back in the main session so students end up introducing each other rather than themselves. |
| “Five Pictures” - Learners create a collage of five pictures or images that best describe themselves. Learners describe how the pictures represent their identity. You can ask students to respond to other students posts. This introduces students to each other and the technical aspects of the discussion forum. |
“Who done that”
– This activity aims to establish areas of common introducing and to introduce students to each other and the Zoom annotation tool. You can share a slide with a list relating to personal (e.g. travel, interests etc.) and study-related items. Using the annotation tool, ask students to type their names next to three items that they have done in the list. If they are unable to find anything on the list they have done, they can add to an alternative list.
This could also work using Wikis in vUWS or other shared documents (e.g. Google Docs). |
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Online socialisation
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“Two Truths One Lie” - This is a variation on the personal introductions where students are asked to post two truths about themselves and one statement that is a lie. Peers attempt to determine which piece of given information is false. Students are encouraged to ask questions by responding to the posts from their peers. | “Group challenge” – During the first asynchronous session, establish regular groups (especially for large classes) and introduce students to their groups using breakout rooms. Present the groups with a problem/challenge. Students can begin the process of interacting and connecting with their group members as they work together to solve the challenge. |
| “Online Café” – Create a Discussion forum as a social space for students to have informal conversations. | “Complete this sentence” – This is another ice-breaker activity that can be used to stimulate interaction between students and enable students to familiarise themselves with the social function of the chat tool within in a synchronous session (Zoom and Blackboard). In this activity, share an unfinished sentence and have students complete it using chat. |
Resources
University of Washington – Icebreaker Ideas
University of Technology, Sydney – Icebreakers in online settings
