We plan
to share our experiences with design and implementation of safe spaces for
students in online classes. Often the classroom, in-person or virtual, is one
of the places where issues of struggling students manifest. The goal of safe
spaces in the virtual classroom is to promote student communication, connect
them with necessary resources --
academic and non-academic -- to help, and create pathways for them to overcome
obstacles. We will distinguish between academic and non-academic safe spaces,
discuss the need for academic safe spaces in online classes, and present how
such spaces can complement other strategies to support student success.
We will present strategies to implement and
compare the advantages of different approaches and share examples of safe
spaces implemented along with student responses who utilized them. Academic
safe spaces can help nontraditional students navigate the constraints of time
and academic resources and ultimately aid in improved retention rates.