2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Work in Progress paper will describe a simple method for increasing students’ interacting with each other and establishing a network of academic peers. In the digital age of smart phones and increased device use, students report increasing isolation from their in-class peers (citation). At the author's university, feelings of loneliness and a lack of community are some of the biggest complaints by the student population. I have found that a low-stakes, easy assignment dubbed 10 Minute Talkies (10MTs) has increased student peer interactions and feelings of satisfaction for the community in the class. In 10MTs, the students are semi-randomly assigned to meet in pairs for 10-minutes outside of the scheduled class time with a required submission of a picture of the meeting as evidence. The assignments are easily adaptable for online or in-person meetings and can be used multiple times in a semester to increase the number of connections within the class roster. Students report positive feedback at mid-semester check-ins and during final class evaluations with requests for more interactions and to keep the assignment for future class iterations. Faculty have anecdotally observed increased class participation and engagement with peers during in-class activities. Future studies will see an IRB approved longitudinal study tracking first-year students through the end of their academic careers to assess if their senses of loneliness and community differ from those students who did not participate in the 10MTs assignment.