Digital Community Building

 Author: Ti'Era Worsley

Hi, how are you? 

Can you hear me? 

Can you hear me now? 

Make sure you unmute yourself to talk! 

Just making sure you can hear me?

Can you see my screen?

Can you type that in the chat?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the above has become the standard opening conversation for digital meetings. The cognitive load required to be fully present via a computer screen is quite taxing leading to Zoom fatigue. Even for myself, having my day revolve around one corner of my apartment has been an interesting learning experience. I have to constantly remind myself when was the last time I ate, got a sip of water, or just walked around. These things are constantly on my mind when I sit down for calls. This led me to wonder how the youth I work with were handling similar issues.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, I facilitated weekly sessions at a local Boys and Girls Club (BGC) and Refugee Center. My top priority is always developing critical caring relationships with youth so that they feel comfortable with me thus creating a positive learning environment. When I learned that our afterschool program would continue this fall virtually I was both excited and nervous. While I was excited to continue the work I was nervous about how to recreate what I would “normally” do via a screen. I view relationship building as creating a community where care is shared bidirectionally. I create this type of community by humanizing youth, having sustained engagement, and being transparent/accountable to them. 

At the beginning of programming, I was very anxious about how it would go. How would youth respond? Would they be too zoom fatigued after a school day? or Would they even want to do programming this way? After a few sessions, I realized that I was still upholding my principles for creating community and building relationships. Even though the interaction was not happening physically the interactions were still happening, and the very same principles that I upheld when we worked together in-person still applied digitally. I became so wrapped up in the idea that I could not recreate digitally what I do in-person that I lost track of my basic principles. 

I thought back to the Critical Digital Pedagogies EXPO (UC Berkeley) from July 2020 where Dr. Kris Gutiérrez posed the question “What does it mean to try to teach humanely and with love and joy”, via digital learning. When I go to BGC to drop off materials I sometimes see the youth I work with. They squint their eyes over their masks and then realize who I am and their eyes fill with excitement. They shout “I know you, you teach our program.” I tell them yes, I am the one on the other side of the screen. They follow this with another excited “Hi” as a means to reintroduce themselves “officially” now that they have verified I am the right person. 

The interaction is small but impactful because it shows me they feel a part of the STEM club community even though they do not have the physical interaction with me. They relive moments from programming telling me what they did, what was fun, and confirming that they will be there again next week. I always tell them; thank you for the feedback, I am glad they are having fun, and I will see them next week. 

While many are switching to teaching methods that are unfamiliar to them I suggest that we take a moment to not focus on the tools or limitations but instead to focus on the people within our digital communities. In the push to get back to normal the reality is that we are NOT in a normal situation. This leaves room for pedagogical innovations where we can place humanizing youth at the center of our practices. Our focus should not be getting back to where we were (as we are changed from this moment forth) but recreating new possibilities for teaching and learning. As I continue to think about my own digital pedagogical practices, I will be paying attention to youth’s feedback about how to improve their digital learning environment.