Ice Breaker Activities
Ice Breakers to Promote Belonging
Examples shared by the University of Wisconsin include:
Personal Introductions - students are asked to talk about their professional interests, goals for the course, personal interests, etc. One option is to have students develop video introductions in Canvas.
Eight nouns - students use eight nouns that best describe themselves.
Five pictures - students create a collage of five pictures that best describe themselves.
Two truths and a lie - students must post two truths about themselves and one lie and classmates have to guess which item is untrue.
Examples shared by Georgetown University include:
Used by Center for Social Justice Team- 28 slides for virtual Ice Breakers
Examples shared on the blog, Leveraging e-Learning, include:
One word - students share one word that best describes them and post it in a discussion forum.
Things - students share an image that reflects why they’re taking the course or that represents them.
Examples shared by the University of Michigan include:
Grab bag- variety of activities to choose from and implement throughout the semester.
Name Story- In this icebreaker activity, students will have the option to share their first name, middle name, last name, nickname or any name that has a history or story such as the name of a pet or nickname given to a friend or family member.
5 Minute Poem-In this activity, students spend five minutes writing a brief four-stanza poem about where they are from.
Web of Connectedness-In this activity, the class sits in a circle while the facilitator poses a discussion question or questions. A ball of yarn, twine, or string is passed to each person who speaks. After a participant speaks, they hold on to part of the string and pass or toss the ball to the next speaker. By the discussion’s end, the string will form a web between the students, showing who spoke.
Examples shared by the Academy of Art University include:
Common ground (for Zoom) - groups (4-6 learners) have 5 minutes to write a list of everything they all have in common.
Burning questions - students write 1-3 “burning questions” they have about the course.
Forced analogies – the instructor posts two seemingly unrelated nouns and students have to post as many similarities or connections between them as possible.
Examples shared by the Poll Everywhere
50 examples that use Poll Everywhere to help people get to know each other