Mullally teaches at Carleton University, in Canada. Her classes didn’t meet in person until the fall of 2022, and even though the course is for students in at least their second year, most hadn’t had much, if any, in-person class experience. Students, she knew, were out of the habit of interacting with their classmates. And many were lonely. When the term began, Mullally said, the room was silent.
Even a couple of weeks in, she said, they had not warmed up.
So Mullally told them: “Here’s the thing. University is about learning; of course it is. And we’re all here because we’re interested in biotechnology. But also, you’re supposed to make friends. It’s supposed to be fun.”
That’s not the only reason meeting other people in class matters, Mullally noted in an interview. Learning is social, and science is collaborative. “The reality is that science is a team sport,” she said. “And the best, most important, most impactful science is done in big groups of people.”
Mullally already uses active-learning strategies in her teaching, but she put in more effort to help students meet and talk with one another during class last year. She regularly had students work in pairs or small groups, doing activities like jigsaws, where students become experts in one part of a topic and then teach each other, and mini presentations meant to help them prepare for a bigger one at the end of the term. Mullally would also sometimes direct students to discuss a question with someone in class they hadn’t spoken with before.
For some of them, at least, it really worked. Mullally connected me with two pairs of her students, and I had a Zoom call with each duo to hear more and catch a bit of their dynamic in action.
For Rumeysa Dos, Mullally’s encouragement to make a friend was welcome. Dos, who grew up in Turkey and Azerbaijan, was a high-school student in Canada for just a few months before the pandemic began and felt her English-language skills weren’t where they should be. But the way Mullally talked, she said, “made me feel so comfortable, I wanted to open up.”
Dos first crossed paths with Anastasia Koziar when both students went to update their bus passes after class. As they were talking, Dos got a phone call from her grandmother, who speaks Russian. She handed the phone to Koziar, an international student from Russia, who chatted with Dos’s grandma. The unusual moment quickly bonded the two students, both of whom are now going into their third year. “There is no going back from that point,” Koziar said.
In biotech, Dos and Koziar sat together and worked on projects together. Once, when Dos was home sick, she dialed into class on a call with Koziar. Dos returned the favor when Koziar missed the bus.
When winter break arrived, Dos invited Koziar, who was unable to go home, to stay with her family. Both intend to go on in science, and half-jokingly plan for Dos to start a biotech company that Koziar, who wants to be a bench scientist, will work for.
Sophia Bossert and Nadine Kamm-Ramirez, both of whom are going into their fourth year, first met at a biology social at the start of the term and recognized each other in biotech afterwards. They bonded over their shared philosophy about group projects: “We have very similar work ethics,” Kamm-Ramirez said, “and we were kind of pulling the group’s weight together.”
“I love the drive in her,” Kamm-Ramirez said. She was excited to find someone with a similar outlook to academics who would help keep her on track. “I admired Sophia right away, ‘cause she was up front, honest, and she was straight to the point.”
During our call, Bossert and Kamm-Ramirez made a point of giving each other credit and compliments, and smiled as they described each other.
Bossert hadn’t had any group projects in the first two years of college, but she remembered disliking them in high school because she took on more than her share of the work. Now she didn’t have to go it alone.
“It kind of felt like we’d been friends forever,” Bossert said. “We clicked.”
Both the layout of the room — students sat at circular tables — and Mullally’s insistence that students interact with different classmates sparked socialization, Bossert said. But given the chance, she and Kamm-Ramirez sat together and worked together in class.
They studied together, too. Kamm-Ramirez started tagging along to the library with Bossert and her friends for what Bossert calls “reading club.” It’s not a book club, where a common book is discussed, but rather a group of friends sitting together silently reading their own books. The next term, they didn’t have any classes together, but Bossert kept an appointment in her schedule to see Kamm-Ramirez each week. They consulted on their schedules for the coming year and will be taking more classes together. “I feel more comfortable and less scared for the classes I’m taking with Nadine,” Bossert said. She’ll have someone to ask questions, and someone to sit with.
Have you encouraged students to seek friends in your courses? How do you go about it? Has it worked? Do you see any benefits when students build such connections? Share your experience with me at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com, and I may share it in a future newsletter.
Getting up to speed
Does your college have a good program for orienting new professors — and new adjuncts, in particular? Jamie Chriqui, senior associate dean of the School of Public Health and a professor of health policy and administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is planning to create one and is looking for good models. “I’d like it to include info about onboarding with the LMS, best practices in teaching, use of rubrics, etc.,” Chriqui wrote to us.
Beth and I figured that many colleges would have new faculty training of some kind, but programs geared toward adjuncts might be less common. Have you designed such a program? Or have you been through one that you found effective? Are there any pitfalls you’d encourage Chriqui to avoid? Write to me at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com, and I will round up some ideas to share.
Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us, at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com or beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.
-Beckie
Learn more about our Teaching newsletter, including how to contact us, at the Teaching newsletter archive page.
