Can Microsoft Teams be used as a digital space to build a community, foster a sense of belonging and promote a positive student experience?

The Belonging partnership pilot initiative started in September 2022 for the Accounting programme to respond to challenges of managing students from a variety of cultural-educational backgrounds (Caroll & Ryan, 2005). These challenges can be summed up as the 3Cs; firstly, how do we cultivate meaningful connections with students to reduce a sense of isolation and anxiety, secondly, how do we effectively communicate and encourage open communication amongst students and thirdly, how do we build collaboration with students as partners (Cook-Sather & Felten, 2017), to promote the student voice?

We leveraged technology by using Microsoft Teams to create a secure digital space to foster a sense of belonging and empower students to become connected, independent learners. Building on a successful pilot initiative, first delivered in 2022, programme level teams’ community spaces now run across faculties within multidisciplinary fields by using shared resources.

This qualitative study uses the Theory of Change methodology underpinned by anchoring pedagogic theories of belonging with dignity (Kobb & Krownapple, 2019) and the four foundations of belonging, namely connection, inclusion, support and autonomy at university (Jackson et. al, 2022). We will share our focus group findings on how Microsoft Teams as a digital platform can be used to create a personalised, inclusive and accessible community (Wenger, 1998) to foster a sense of belonging and promote a positive student experience.