John. P. Miller (2007) beautifully summarizes how community building in intrinsic to a holistic approach through building connections between students, between students and teacher and between students to the learning process.

A holistic approach aims to support the development of a child beyond academic performance in the classroom. A holistic approach cares for the social, emotional, physical and academic well-being of each individual. According to Miller (2010), a caring classroom is the foundation for teaching 'the whole child'. Within a caring classroon, students feel safe to be themselves, connected to their teachers and peers, and free to learn about themselves and the world around them. Building community is an essential process that must take place in order for a holistic approach to curriculum to be successful. However, building community is a process that must go beyond the first week of school activities and take place throughout the year. It requires that the educator in the classroom:

1) create opportunities for students to share about themselves and connect with their peers,
2) work through challenges and strategize for growth as individuals and as a group; and
3) reflect on and celebrate personal and community growth, relationships and successes.

Community can evolve organically on its one; however, by taking a thoughtful deliberate approach with actions that respond to where the classroom in it's community building process, the teacher can help to ensure a safe, caring learning community emerges.

The website is organized in three steps — or phases — to build classroom community: the beginning , the middle and the end, or in this case, 'building', 'nurturing', and 'celebrating'. These are the three divisions of this site that you'll find in the upper right navigation area.

The organization of this resource aims to allow educators and facilitators to determine appropriate community building activities based on where the community is in its development.

In each phase, I have offered six community building exercises. Two activities for each of the different classroom environments: Face to Face, Online - Asychronous, Online - Synchronous. The notion of community has grown as a result of the proliferation of the internet and communication technologies in our daily lives. No longer is 'community' geographically define; but can be interest, identity, or even platform defined. Facilitating community building activities in blended learning spaces aims to extend the classroom community experience to any space where as a learning group, students and teachers gather to work together.

The activities that I have included in this resource are a curated collection that will continue to grow and evolve. I have either participated in these exercises as a learner/participant, facilitated as an instructor, or look forward to piloting them in my own upcoming classroom.

S. Bourdon

Miller, J. P. (2010). Whole child education. University of Toronto Press.