2.6 Classroom climate online

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Classroom climate is an important consideration because it invites us to think about additional layers of context for situating complex classroom situations. Ambrose and colleagues (2010) define classroom climate as “the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical environments in which our students learn.” Different aspects of the classroom climate and student development—intellectual and social identity development in particular—interact with each other to have an impact on student learning, experience and performance. UBC, like other places where students and instructors may be located, has a multilayered and complex history mirrored by the diversity of perspectives and experiences that exist on each campus. For this reason, UBC classrooms are not static and neutral spaces; rather, they continue to be multidimensional and dynamic spaces where complex interactions occur through the diversity of identities, modes of delivery and places of learning.

In the online learning environment, you will need to consider added layers of complexity to establish your classroom climate.  For example, in online environments, our ability to engage with each other’s non-verbal communications (e.g., seeing full body language, hearing a sigh, making eye contact) can be limited. Therefore, navigating affect and emotion in an online classroom requires care and attention and intentional selection of tool use to interact with students. You may check in with students using different online functions, such as letting students express their feelings with emojis or through an online poll. Student participation may also be different in an online classroom. For example, students who find it difficult to participate in fast-paced face-to-face discussions, may be more likely to participate in online discussion spaces such as discussion boards that allow them time to collect their thoughts before participating.

As an instructor, you can design, conceptualize and integrate aspects of classroom climate into your practice through the approaches you take in your curriculum and the learning environment you create. Here we focus on two approaches: positioning yourself and your location, and centering indigenous perspectives in your course syllabus. 

Positioning yourself and your location

The historical setting of a classroom can inform and guide the ways students learn from the institutional contexts surrounding the classroom. UBC’s Vancouver campus is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the Musqueam people. UBC’s Okanagan campus is situated on the territory of the Okanagan Sylix Nation.  These lands inform the history and fabric of learning at UBC. You are an integral part of the classroom climate framework. When you teach, you model ways to engage with concepts and histories that can both challenge and add to the way that students understand disciplines, the lands we are learning on, and the relationships that exist between them.

Acknowledging the Indigenous territories within or surrounding your institution or current online location, is a way to invite further conversations around classroom climate. Including a territory acknowledgement on your syllabus and the Start Here module and inviting conversations on the first day and throughout your course, mirrors the history and contemporary relationships of where you are teaching and also the diversity of perspectives and ideas that continue to exist here. The process of acknowledging Indigenous territories and land, provides students with a critical lens to think about their own locations and offers them an invitation to explore areas of their prior knowledge that might have gaps. Indigenous communities continue to be leaders and educators and provide online and accessible resources for use in classrooms. Because online learners may be positioned across Canada and beyond, opening up conversations about location and relationships to land can be an exciting way to learn more about one another. Below are some examples of how these can be brought into your online classroom.

Territory acknowledgments

Please note: Videos on this page do not contain closed captions. If you have questions about their content, or would like to request a written transcript for accessibility purposes, please visit https://ctlt.ubc.ca/about/contact-us/. Select Indigenous Initiatives from the “How can we help you?” drop down menu and reference this page https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/52088/pages/2-dot-6-classroom-climate-online.

Asynchronous options

Inviting elders to the classroom is a good practice to centre Indigenous voices and the valuable teachings that they share. If you are teaching an online course there are several options you can choose from to bring these voices, teachings and perspectives into your course. For example, if you are teaching a course at UBC Vancouver you may consider using the traditional welcome from Musqueam Elder Larry Grant as it is proper protocol to have a member of the community where your teaching is taking place do a welcome. You may include this welcome in your first email out to students as a way to set a good tone for your course and to preface the importance of acknowledging Indigenous territories, sovereignty and knowledge systems in online spaces. 

Synchronous options 


Create a slideshow using photos of who you are and your current location. You can identify whose traditional territory(ies) you are currently working on and how this connects to your teaching, the course, and the discipline. Consider these guiding questions and use the answers to shape your territory acknowledgment and further conversations about Indigenous perspectives in your course:

  • How do you situate yourself on the land? 
  • How does your positionality shape your relationships to your students and course content?
  • What are the learning objectives and outcomes for your students from engaging with land acknowledgements in the classroom?
  • How can you connect this to your teaching practice?

After you have presented your land acknowledgement slide, you could initiate a discussion with your students by asking the following questions in the chat, using a poll feature, in a discussion forum, or an online tool such as the UBC wiki:

  • What prior experiences have you had with territorial acknowledgments?
  • Through your experiences, what have you learned about land acknowledgements?

If you would like to know more, UBC has an excellent resource on Inclusive Teaching and Land Acknowledgements in Teaching and Learning developed through a collaboration of non-Indigenous settlers who work and live on the traditional, unceded, lands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking Musqueam people. It attempts to serve as a beginner's guide to help better understand the importance of land acknowledgements and how to integrate them into teaching and learning practice, specific to UBC Point Grey campus. Another resource, the UBC Indigenous Peoples: Language Guidelines [pdf], includes information on land acknowledgements for Okanagan, Downtown, VGH, and Point Grey campuses.

Centring Indigenous perspectives in your course syllabus

In the previous section, we discussed ways that positioning yourself and your location helps create a welcoming  classroom climate. Integrating Indigenous perspectives throughout your course more broadly is an important step in your course design. You may be wondering how to bring in a variety of Indigenous perspectives relevant to your course learning objectives. You may also have questions about how to design your assignments around Indigenous topics that the library has online materials to support. Xwi7xwa Library is a centre for academic and community Indigenous scholarship, its collections and services reflect Indigenous approaches to teaching, learning, and research. You can book an appointment with the librarians at Xwi7xwa who can introduce you to the curated resources and expertise available. Xwi7xwa Library also has a Distance Research Guide which includes tips and tricks for researching Indigenous topics remotely.

Learn more about the  Xwi7wa Library and the resources there to support your course.

In an online environment establishing visibility of who students are and where they are located is a central part of building a cohesive learning community. Once the community feel of a classroom is established, students are able to take a deeper dive into their learning about Indigenous perspectives and feel a better sense of agency to contribute through activities such as discussions and group work. 

Some considerations to reflect on as you are designing activities for courses that centre positionality and place are:

  • How can the online platforms you use serve as a source of connection and not just a mechanism for content delivery?
  • How can you create a holistic digital environment that provides a community feel? 
  • How does building a classroom community in an online space support students to feel connected to one another as well as the content?

Taking time in the course to ask students to do activities that centre themselves and their locations should be a significant part of their class participation mark since this is a significant part of the learning process. The work that they are going to do should be part of their grade and connect to your learning objectives. As a result, you will get robust feedback and assignments from students where they have had a stake in creating and contributing to the classroom climate.

For more information about the classroom climate, read Module 7: Creating a supportive learning environment.