My good friend, Dr. Joe Lizza, runs campus activities at Rowan University, and we chatted on my podcast about student life a while back. He told a fascinating story during the interview. It turns out, during the first months of COVID, when everything shut down, his team discovered that a surprising number of college students didn’t own laptops. They’d been relying on campus computer labs and library printers for years, and suddenly, none of that was available.
His university scrambled to buy Chromebooks and distribute them in person. College students, the ones we all picture with MacBooks in coffee shops, were showing up to the student center needing basic technology just to finish their semester.
That conversation has stayed with me, and not just because it challenges every assumption about who has access and who doesn’t. What struck me most was how Joe’s team responded. They didn’t wring their hands about what they couldn’t do. They figured out what students actually needed and built systems around that reality. A few years later, that mindset is more relevant than ever.
Click above to listen to the podcast episode: “Changing the Higher-Ed Dynamic with Dr. Joe Lizza”
What “Student Life” Actually Means
When people in K-12 hear “student life” or “campus community,” they tend to picture resident advisors and club fairs. Though that’s part of it, the office of student life, sometimes called the division of student life or division of student affairs, handles everything from student organizations and student clubs to leadership development, cultural events, mental health resources, and the day-to-day experience of being on a post-secondary campus. Intramural sports, club sports, student government, Greek life, disability services, the wellness center, counseling services, campus recreation, student legal services…all of it falls under this umbrella.
These student life departments exist to shape the college experience into something that goes far beyond academic achievement. A student’s personal growth, leadership skills, and cultural awareness are built as much through campus life as through coursework.
But the cleanest definition I can give you is this: student life is the infrastructure that supports everything students do outside of class that directly impacts what happens inside of class. A student who can’t find food, can’t access technology, can’t find a quiet place to work, or feels completely disconnected from their fellow students won’t learn effectively, no matter how brilliant the lesson plan is. That’s the piece K-12 teachers sometimes miss….not because they don’t care, but because the structures look different.
The needs are still the same.
The Disconnect Nobody Talks About
I’ve noticed across the hundreds of schools I’ve worked with since leaving my own classroom that K-12 teachers are drowning in content demands, pacing guides, and assessment data. Student engagement gets reduced to “are they turning in work” and “are they participating in discussion.” Meanwhile, higher ed student life professionals spend their entire careers studying what actually makes students feel connected enough to engage in the first place. These two worlds rarely talk to each other. They should.
When I was teaching high school history, first at a nationally ranked academic school and later at a Title I CTE school, I thought student engagement was mostly about how I designed my lessons. Make them interesting, relevant, and differentiated enough, and students will respond. What I didn’t understand until years later was that a student’s sense of belonging precedes their willingness to engage academically. A kid who feels invisible in the building doesn’t suddenly become visible just because I created a really compelling primary-source activity.
Since 2018, I’ve been training K-12 teachers across every grade level and school type you can imagine, and I’ve watched this same pattern play out over and over. The teachers who crack the engagement code aren’t necessarily the ones with the flashiest activities. They’re the ones who build the relational infrastructure first, the thing student life professionals have been doing deliberately for decades. Community life matters just as much in a middle school hallway as it does in a residence hall. That sense of belonging is what makes student success possible, whether you’re a first-year student finding your way or a senior about to graduate.
What Joe’s Team Built Under Pressure
Joe told me something during that conversation that I’ve repeated to teachers more times than I can count. When his team couldn’t do any of their normal programming, the campus-wide events, the late-night activities, the in-person student organization meetings, he told his staff to stop panicking about what they couldn’t offer and start building something they’d actually use in the future.
“We never have time to develop stuff,” he said. “We’re always working to keep our head above water.” That line hit me because it’s exactly what K-12 teachers say.
The difference was that his administration gave him permission to prioritize differently, and he gave his staff permission to be human first. He told them, ” If you need to work from 6-9 at night because your kids are home during the day, do that. If the output looks different than a normal semester, that’s okay.” The structure was flexible, but the purpose was clear.
What came out of that period were systems that stuck. They upgraded meeting spaces with cameras and ceiling-mounted microphones so they could host an in-person event while live-streaming it to commuter and graduate students who’d never been able to participate before. They started running programming during Thanksgiving break and winter break because they realized some students weren’t traveling home and were sitting alone in residence halls with nothing to do. They partnered with Philabundance for fresh produce pickups and continued providing community resources that students relied on.
None of that went away when things normalized. It shouldn’t have. For many students, especially those stepping onto campus for the first time, these engagement opportunities were the difference between feeling like they belonged and feeling completely untethered.
What This Looks Like in a K-12 Classroom
You might be thinking this sounds great for a university with a dedicated division of student affairs and a budget for Chromebooks. I get that, but the principles translate directly.
After I started applying what I’d learned from conversations like the one with Joe, I helped teachers adjust how they ran their own classrooms. They stopped assuming every student had internet at home and started checking quietly and privately, without making anyone explain themselves. They created a five-minute weekly check-in Google Form that asked two questions: “What’s one thing going well right now?” and “What’s one thing you’re struggling with that has nothing to do with this class?” The answers are usually flooring. Students write about working night shifts, about caring for younger siblings, and about not having a desk at home.
You can’t solve all of it, but you can stop designing assignments that assume conditions that don’t exist.
I worked with one teacher who had a 4th-period class that was always her toughest, right after lunch, energy all over the place. I encouraged her to start doing something Joe mentioned with his college freshmen. She embedded quick check-in questions throughout the lesson rather than waiting for raised hands. Students who’d never spoken aloud in a full-class discussion were suddenly typing thoughtful responses into a shared document. It wasn’t that they didn’t have things to say…they just needed a different on-ramp.
For some, it was the first time they’d consistently participated in anything. They were finally out of their comfort zone in a way that felt safe.
Teachers sometimes ask me where to find additional resources for building this kind of classroom culture. The truth is that student life departments have been publishing their frameworks for years. Look up the mission statement of any university’s campus life division, and you’ll find language about fostering personal development, building leadership opportunities, and creating a variety of ways for students to connect. A K-12 classroom operates on the same principles, just on a smaller scale.
The Camera Problem Is About Trust, Not Compliance
Joe mentioned that his university didn’t require students to keep webcams on during synchronous classes, and I know that’s a heated topic in K-12 circles. I’ve heard virtual teachers argue that cameras off means students are checked out, that it’s disrespectful, and that it makes teaching impossible.
I’m going to be honest about where I land on this. For some students, the camera-off policy protects something real…a kid logging in from a crowded kitchen table, a bedroom they share with two siblings, or a space they’re genuinely embarrassed about. Forcing that camera on doesn’t create engagement. It creates humiliation. The student who’s actually disengaged isn’t going to be saved by a camera policy anyway. They need a different intervention entirely.
What works better is building in genuine accountability through the work itself, such as quick responses, collaborative documents, and small-group breakouts where cameras feel less exposed. It takes longer to build trust that way, but it actually lasts. I’ve seen this approach work across a variety of programs and grade levels, from elementary morning meetings to high school seminars. The common thread is that students engage when they feel seen, not surveilled.
The Commuter Student Parallel Nobody Mentions
One insight from Joe’s experience that I haven’t stopped thinking about is his point that commuter and graduate students have always been excluded from campus life. Events happen at night. If you couldn’t stay late or come back to campus after hours, you simply didn’t participate. The virtual and hybrid options they built out of necessity ended up solving a decades-old access problem.
K-12 has a version of this. Think about the student who can’t stay after school for help because they have to care for younger siblings, or the student whose parents work evenings and can’t provide transportation, or the student has a part-time job that runs until closing, or the student with social anxiety so severe that a crowded study session feels impossible. When teachers start offering virtual office hours, recording review sessions, and creating asynchronous discussion options, those students finally have access.
For many, it was the first time they could actually participate in something beyond the school day. A great way to think about this is to ask yourself: which students have I never seen at an optional activity, and what barrier have I never considered removing?
College life taught Joe’s team that meeting students where they are isn’t just a nice slogan…it’s the only thing that works. The same holds true for any academic year in K-12. Students step into new experiences when we lower the barrier for entry. They find new people to connect with. They discover that learning can happen outside their comfort zone. We shouldn’t need a crisis to offer access that should have been there all along.
My Honest Take
If I were back in the classroom tomorrow, here’s what I’d actually do, and what I tell teachers in training sessions now when they ask me where to start.
Stop trying to replicate your in-person engagement strategies online or in a hybrid setup. It doesn’t work, and it makes you feel like a failure, even though it’s really a design problem. Instead, pick one thing Joe’s team did and adapt it. Run a quick Google Form pulse check once a week. Ask students what’s getting in their way that has nothing to do with your class. Build one asynchronous participation option for every major activity. Let students show up in the way that’s actually possible for them right now. These small shifts create the kinds of engagement opportunities that build real community life in a classroom, much like student organizations and leadership opportunities build community on a campus.
The teachers who push back on this usually tell me they’re worried about students taking advantage of the flexibility. Some will. Some always do. The question isn’t whether a few students will game the system; it’s whether the system is currently excluding students who want to engage but can’t. In my experience, the students who start engaging when you lower barriers far outnumber the ones who coast.
This shift isn’t easy. It often takes the better part of a semester to feel natural, and some students push back before they come around. They’re generally used to compliance-based engagement and don’t know how to handle genuine choice. That discomfort is part of the process. Personal growth rarely happens within a comfort zone, and that’s as true for teachers trying new approaches as for students trying new ways of learning.
If you want to dive deeper into what student-centered engagement actually looks like in practice, I’ve written about the scaffolding that makes it work in several other posts here on the site. The framework piece matters. You can’t just throw choice at students without structure and expect academic achievement to follow. Professional development on these strategies is something I’ve led for years now, and the teachers who stick with it long enough to get past the awkward phase are the ones who tell me their classrooms finally feel the way they imagined when they first started teaching.
How do you build community when you only see students in person a few times a week?
Steal from student life professionals to create non-academic touchpoints. A two-minute check-in at the start of class. A shared document where students can anonymously drop questions. Recognition of things happening in students’ lives outside your classroom. Community isn’t built by icebreakers. It’s built by consistency and genuine curiosity about who your students actually are.
Is virtual programming actually worth the effort for K-12 students?
Yes, but not as a replica of in-person events. The value of virtual options is access. The student who can’t stay after school, the student with social anxiety, the student who works, they now have a way in that didn’t exist before. Keep it simple. Recorded review sessions, optional virtual study groups, and asynchronous discussion threads. Don’t expect massive attendance. Expect to serve the students who were always falling through the cracks.
What’s the difference between student engagement and student compliance?
Compliance looks like work getting turned in on time and heads nodding. Engagement looks like students asking questions you didn’t prompt, staying after to continue a conversation, or connecting material to something happening in their own lives. Compliance is quiet and orderly. Engagement is sometimes messy. You can have compliance without a shred of real learning. You can’t have real learning without at least some engagement.
How do I check for understanding when I can’t read the room?
Build in deliberate checkpoints. Joe’s strategy of embedding questions throughout a lecture rather than waiting for raised hands works in person, too. Short written responses, exit tickets, and targeted questions for specific students, with built-in think time. The absence of visible confusion doesn’t mean understanding is happening. Ask explicitly, and do it often.
Why should K-12 teachers care what higher ed student life professionals are doing?
Because student life professionals have been systematically studying belonging, engagement, and retention for decades, and K-12 teachers are often reinventing that wheel alone. The structures look different, but the core insight is the same: students engage when they feel connected, seen, and supported. Everything else is logistics.
This article was originally published on December 12, 2020.
