The first day of classes can be daunting for your students and for you. With the move to online instruction, it can be even more challenging to get to know your students and develop rapport with them. Icebreakers can help your students form connections with each other and become more comfortable speaking or asking questions in class. Below are six icebreaker activities you can do with your classes: three options can be done synchronously over Zoom or other videoconferencing software and three can be done asynchronously on iLearn or Canvas. These activities could be used in any class as-is or tailored to fit your discipline or course.

[Image Description: A large polar bear rubs its chin along the ice as it crawls around]

Pictured: Breaking the ice doesn’t have to be this challenging!

 

Synchronous Videoconferencing Icebreakers

In the case of all videoconferencing icebreakers, the activity will work better if everyone is using “gallery view” instead of “speaker view”, so all participants can be seen at once.

1. Raise Your Hand If…

In this activity you read a series of statements and ask students to raise their hand if the statement being read applies to them. If students have their video turned on they can raise their hand on camera or they can choose to click the “raise hand” button in Zoom (this option would also work for those with their video turned off). This activity can be a good way to get to know some basics about your students as a group. Some sample statements might be:

• “Raise your hand if you are new to UCR”
•  “Raise your hand if you are a junior”
• “Raise your hand if you are a Political Science major”
• “Raise your hand if you have siblings”

This also has the added bonus of familiarizing your students with the “raise hand” button in Zoom.

 

2. Two Truths and a Lie

For this activity give students a few moments to think of two truthful statements and one lie about themselves. It is better for the game if the lie is believable, so “I have brown hair” would be better than “my grandmother is the Queen of England.” Once students have chosen their “two truths and a lie” go around the group one-by-one having the chosen student say their three statements and then asking the rest of the group to guess which statement is the lie. The person who shared their three statements then confirms whether the group guessed correctly or not.

To make this game run more smoothly online it helps to use the poll function in Zoom or use an outside application like Poll Everywhere. You can create the poll ahead of time by pre-loading the student’s names and then use the poll options “statement one”, “statement two”, and “statement three” for each student’s name. The poll might look something like this:

Which of the three statements Rosa Diaz told us was a lie?

• Statement one
• Statement two
• Statement three

This way students can vote for which statement they think is a lie through the poll and everyone can easily visualize the results.

 

3. Fantastic Show and Tell

To begin this activity, ask everyone to take a moment and locate an object near them. The object could be anything. For example, it could be a pen or pencil, a mouse pad, a mug, or a pair of glasses. Once everyone has located an object take turns going around the group asking the person to tell a short made-up story about the origin of their item in the form of “show and tell”. For example: “I’m Nina and this pen may look ordinary but it was found in a sunken treasure chest!” or “My name is Jose and these glasses were given to me by a wizard and allow me to see through walls”. It helps if everyone has their cameras on, but people without video could upload a picture of the item to the chat window instead.

[Image Description: Jung Kim and Appa, from Kim’s Convenience, raise their hands and dance in a crowded nightclub]

Pictured: Your students raising their hands during the “raise your hand if…” icebreaker

 

Asynchronous Icebreakers

For asynchronous icebreakers, the best format is the discussion board. The discussion board allows you to view the submissions and for students to view and comment on each other’s posts.

1. Virtual Name Tags

To begin this activity, create a discussion thread and post a template for the “name tag”. For example:

Hello, my name is:

My major is:

In my spare time, I like to:

My favorite food is:

Students should then copy your template, fill it out with information about themselves, and post it as a reply to your thread. To add extra interaction among students, ask them to find someone else with one thing in common with them (eg. they both love tacos) and comment on their post. If you want students to know more about you, you can create your own reply using the template.

 

2. One Fun Thing

In this activity, students are asked to share one fun thing with the group. You should create a discussion thread and outline any ground rules about what can or cannot be included. Then ask students to reply to the thread with their answers. Students may share a song they like to listen to, a picture of their pet, a story about a funny thing their child did, a book they enjoyed reading, etc. You can then go in and comment on what everyone shared, and like the previous activity, you could share your own fun thing too.

 

3. This or That

This activity will ask students to choose one of two options based on prompts written in the form of “would you rather”. First, create a discussion thread with the questions they need to respond to, and then ask students to post their choices as a reply. Here are some ideas:

• Would you rather eat a sweet snack or a salty snack?
• Would you rather take a train ride or a boat ride?
• Would you rather have dinner for breakfast or breakfast for dinner?
• Would you rather be a great singer or a great dancer?
• Would you rather speak 4 languages or play 4 musical instruments?

For an extra element, you could tally the results and present it to the class in a reply or separate post.

[Image Description: Troy McClure, from The Simpsons, relaxes in a mud bath, then looks up towards the camera and says “Oh, hello.”]

Pictured: It’s good that icebreakers help us all become comfortable when we teach...just not this comfortable

 

Interested in learning more about teaching online? Check out some of the resources on the Teaching Assistant Development Program (TADP) website for more information: https://tadp.ucr.edu/resources/teaching-continuity. We have a number of web resources as well as recordings of our past workshops. You can also peruse the Keep Teaching website for technology tutorials and webinars: https://keepteaching.ucr.edu/ta-resources.

[Image Description: Kelli, from Insecure, tells her friend Issa “you know what that is? Growth” while imitating the movement of a flower opening with her hand]

Pictured: You, growing your teaching repertoire