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 &amp; 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 &amp; Felten, 2017), to promote the student voice?<br/><br/>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.<br/><br/>This qualitative study uses the Theory of Change methodology underpinned by anchoring pedagogic theories of belonging with dignity (Kobb &amp; 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.