About Screen Breakers

Don't just break the ice, SHATTER the screen

kicking a pole

Screen breakers is a guide to building community and breaking down the virtual barrier in your online classrooms, offices, friend groups, and more.

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Tips and Recommendations

  • 1

    Begin with two Melts. We recommend including one that involves physical movement.

  • 2

    Create breakout rooms as needed to keep groups small and intimate.

  • 3

    Make the activities as LONG or as short as you want

  • 4

    Develop inside jokes within activities and have students come back to those inside jokes during the session

  • 5

    Find creative ways to allow everyone to share.

  • 6

    Have fun! Don’t focus too much on doing all the activities. Whether you do one or all, enjoy.

    • Why Community Building?

    Screen Breaker began as a human centered design project for redesigning the virtual orientation experience for freshmen, but it has developed into a project focused around community building.

    Through interviews and testing, the Screen Breaker team learned that students who feel comfortable in their classes are more likely to stay engaged and participate. Even if they don’t know each other!

    The virtual experience creates a barrier for students to make connections in their classes. Creating even a small level of community is enough for students to feel comfortable reaching out to classmates and professors for help.

    In more tests, we learned that this wasn’t only true for students, but also working professionals.

    To read more, check out our Medium article here.

    Screen Breaker Team

    Top Left: Eda Topuz, junior at Claremont Mckenna College college majoring in Economics.

    Top Right: Yurie Muramatsu, junior at Pomona College majoring in computer science

    Bottom Left: AbdulBasit Ajeigbe, junior at Pomona College majoring in computer science and media studies

    Bottom Right: Riley Knowles, junior at Pitzer College majoring in Economics.

    The Screen Breaker team would also like to give a special thanks to theHive and Fred Leicther, theHive director, for assisting in bringing this project to fruition.