At Ease: Developing Veterans’ Sense of Belonging in the College Classroom

Abstract

Recent changes to university services address student veterans’ abilities to complete their degrees, including programs that assist student veterans in finding a sense of belonging on campus. However, the need for student veterans to feel they belong in the classroom remains less a focus in scholarship. Incorporating semester-length peer groups into classes offers one pedagogical strategy for addressing this need. This article presents an autoethnographic study detailing my pedagogical process to develop and implement these peer groups and illustrates how these peer groups aided several student veterans in developing a sense of belonging in the classroom.

Keywords

• student veterans
• pedagogy
• peer group
• belonging