WHAT IT IS:

Build Connections, developed by researcher Chris Hulleman, is a mindset strategy that helps students identify the value in otherwise obscure academic concepts or tasks by making associations between those concepts and personal interests or other inherently valuable ideas.

HOW IT WORKS:

Fundamentally, the Build Connections strategy simply involves students identifying academic topics being studied, personal interests or inherently valuable tasks or ideas, and making connections between items on each list.

Teachers can implement this strategy in many ways, but one simple approach suggested by Dave Stuart Jr. is to have students first list topics being studied, then list personal interests, then identify one item from the personal interest list that relates to the academic topics list and reflect on why the two are connected.

Some teachers also suggest providing the list of academic topics to students based on content standards or academic vocabulary.

One example of this is how 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Kittleson used Build Connections to improve her weekly vocabulary assessments.

Pictured below, Mrs. Kittleson wrote each vocabulary word on a sticky poster around the classroom. Using a gallery walk activity, her students toured the room with markers, writing about any connection (personal interest or otherwise) they could for each word. Notice below on the “social” poster how a student wrote, “a bee is a social insect”.