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GCA Unmuted: Voices of Virtual Education
Welcome to GCA Unmuted, the podcast where we share the stories and strategies that show how Georgia Cyber Academy makes online learning work.
GCA Unmuted: Voices of Virtual Education
Building Student Community with Michelle Gilyard: Clubs and Competitions in a Virtual School
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School is about more than academics. It’s also about connection, belonging, and opportunities to grow outside the classroom.
In this episode of GCA Unmuted: Voices of Virtual Education, we’re joined by Michelle Gilyard, Family School Partnership Coordinator for Leadership and Service at Georgia Cyber Academy. Michelle shares how clubs and competitions create meaningful opportunities for students to connect, lead, and build community in a fully virtual environment.
The conversation explores how students get involved in clubs, what participation looks like online, and how competitions bring energy and engagement across a statewide student body. Michelle also reflects on the impact these experiences have on student confidence, leadership development, and social connection.
This episode is part of GCA Unmuted’s ongoing documentation of how virtual schools create a complete student experience—both inside and outside the classroom.
Thanks for listening to GCA Unmuted: Voices of Virtual Education, a podcast documenting how virtual school works in practice at Georgia Cyber Academy.
Each episode features educators, staff, and leaders sharing real stories and systems that support teaching and learning in a virtual environment.
Learn more about the podcast and explore past episodes at:
https://www.georgiacyber.org/about/unmuted
You can also watch full episodes and highlights on our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@GCAchampions
Welcome to GCA Unmuted, the podcast where we share the stories and strategies that show how Georgia Cyber Academy makes online learning work. A school is about more than academics. It's also about connection. At GCA, clubs and competitions bring students together in ways that spark leadership, creativity, and belonging, even in a fully virtual world. I'm joined today by Dr. Michelle Gilliard, GCA's family school partnership coordinator for leadership and service, who plays a key role in coordinating clubs and competitions that give students a place to connect, grow, and shine. We'll dive into how clubs are formed, what kinds of competitions GCA offers, and why these programs matter so much for building student engagement and community online. So thanks again, Michelle, for being here. And can you share a story or a moment that you think really shows the impact of clubs or competitions that have had on a student or even a group of students? So you can think about like a story that's just one student in particular, you know, or like a group of students where you're like, man, you know, this really captures like what clubs and competitions are all about here at GCA.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So thinking about our first beta competition as an advisor for our betas, we were in Savannah. No, we're in Jekyll, I'm sorry. It was a beta leadership summit. First time any of these kids had ever competed, and they placed first.
unknownNo way.
SPEAKER_00And it blew their minds. I already knew they were capable of it. They needed to see that they were capable of it. And from then on, Halton, these kids were like, when is the next competition? I can't wait to go. That also helped even with uh parent buy-in. Um, so the parents could see, look, we're not just going and doing these things, we're succeeding at these things. So that was a pivotal turning point in our competitions for our students.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing. Did you see like a shift in confidence or like skills with that group? And was it a group? How many students was it?
SPEAKER_00So it was seven students and yes, because some of them were maybe um um members of Baina who then went on to run as officers. So it helped them develop their leadership voice and helped them recognize how valuable and strong they were. Because a lot of the times, Halton, these kids have it, but they just need something to kind of, you know, not shove them, but gently guide them a little bit into their voice, and they step into those roles um fabulously. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's so cool. And for people who don't know what beta is, what is beta? I'm sure we'll get into it more like further further down in the conversation, but I'm just just really quickly, what is beta, anyways?
SPEAKER_00So beta has my favorite model, which is let us lead by serving others. So the service projects and initiatives that they take on are gonna be things surrounded by helping the uh their community, um, their peers, building community, and doing service projects that are specifically targeted to leading, but serving others through that project.
SPEAKER_03I see. You said that there were seven students there. Did you see like them become really good friends during that competition or and like after did friendship stay? Like, can you tell me a little bit about that? Like, did their sense of community grow?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So um several times throughout the competition, because we were at Jekyll, we were at the beach, um, we did practice sessions out on the beach. So they were able to come together in person and work on their scripts for their um one of their PowerPoint presentations where they were presenting in front of a judge about a service project that we had done uh the previous school year, kindness cards. So they were able to really build long-lasting relationships with each other, and those go hand in hand with them, even through other projects, talking about scholarships, talking about ways to advance um in college and dual enrollment. So they just start building on all those conversations and sharing information among each other, they may not have done without building those relationships. And that, Halton, is that first key that opens that door, and then it builds it not only within that group, but in the entire community of students in that club. So it'll spread from beta to student council, NHS when you just see it grow.
SPEAKER_03Would you say then, like that that's kind of what shows that story is what captures the power of these extracurriculars and like what we're doing here at GCA?
SPEAKER_00Yes, we are innovators. I use that word a lot, Halton, because a lot of our clubs, when we talk about all these different traditional brick and mortar clubs, beta, NHS, NTHS, um, a lot of their formats are set up for brick and mortar schools, right? But what we do is we take what they give us and we innovate it and make it work for our virtual environment. And a lot of our brick and mortar schools have shared some of the ways we do things like tracking service projects and holding elections in our virtual environment. Because if you think about it, those kind of things are going to be a lot different for us than the way that would be handled in a brick and mortar school. So a lot of brick and mortar schools have reached out and have actually sent information through our advisor portals to help them um use some of these innovative techniques in their brick and mortar environment. So we are innovators, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh, and that leads me to what types of clubs or student competitions rather and student competitions are available at GCA. Anyway.
SPEAKER_00Halton, do we have that much time? There's so many. So I'll go with one completely different. We have our Secretary of State ambassadors who every year compete to provide civics and government information to our peers by doing polls, um, they do presentations where they talk about ways um to get involved with voting, ways to volunteer, what the rules are around voting. And that is actually a competition because based on the different initiatives that they enact as part of that group, they get points towards a prize at the end of the year. Um, we go to the Secretary of State Ambassador's office and they get to hear from representatives all across the state. Um, the Secretary of State is there, but we also get to meet lobbyists, which is really cool, and the department heads of all the different departments of things for the state of Georgia, and that Halton has actually led to some great opportunities for our students to get internships because they're able to meet with these state representatives face to face. And it also brought to life that no matter what you're planning to do, the state of Georgia has a department for that. So there's technology, there's agriculture, there's this marketing. So they didn't realize that, hey, I don't necessarily, I mean, necessarily want to be a senator, but I could work in government in the field that I that I'm interested in. So it's definitely has opened a lot of doors for our students and eyes.
SPEAKER_03Sure, sure. Yeah. So can you name, can you name um the different types of of clubs and then the different types of competitions? Because you mentioned like we have the standard, like some of the standard brick and mortar stuff, like National Honor Society and Beta. But um broadly speaking, and I know GCA does offer a ton of clubs, but and I mean I don't expect you to obviously name them all and actually do it all right now. Uh but like like what what types of clubs because if people are thinking about like a virtual school, well what what kind of club could you even have at a virtual school? So maybe just broadly speaking, what types of clubs are there? And because you mentioned the Secretary of State competition, and then what what are there other competitions than beta? Because I think you said beta does competitions. Uh I don't know, does NHS do competitions? So can you speak to those a little bit?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so each club may have different opportunities. Beta has a lot of different types of competitions, three or four each time of the year. Student Council, on the other hand, may not have competitions, but they do have conferences where the students can go and learn and grow their leadership skills. So we have what's called the LEED conference, and that is attended by our student council members as well as our National Honor Society members, because that LEED conference actually falls under the umbrella of the National Association of Student Council, which is right under the umbrella of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. So one of the greatest things about that is our student council members as well as our National Honor Society members can come together and collaborate and attend those conferences to go their leadership skills. Now, our National Technical Honor Society does not have specific um competitions, but that's just the structure of National Technical Honor Society. However, Halton, they do have conferences and additional programs that the students can um can enroll in that can increase their CTAE pathway knowledge. They have laps in where the students can go in and learn. If they want to go into the police field, they want to be a firefighter, they want to be a teacher, there's additional sessions and lessons that they can take. They're interested in work-based learning. There's some interesting programs, not only competitions or conferences, but virtual videos that the students can go in, um whether they be live or recorded, and get information on different career pathways. So we do that more in NTHS, Stuco, National Honor Society. Um, beta, again, just their platform, beta's platform, is more competition-based than the others. But the students do get an opportunity to engage um virtually and in person in all of the clubs and different types of conferences.
SPEAKER_03That's that's that that makes a little more sense. And we have we have all the acronyms, it sounds correct.
SPEAKER_00We've got them all National Technical Honor Society, Student Council, National Honor Society, Secretary of State Ambassadors, and Halton. Let me just really quick one other one we got invited to last year, which was super exciting. They heard about our school and what we were doing online. So this one was through um a program called EVP, through our Department of Homeland Security, where we had a student group of about 10 students who came together with the topic of um decreasing violence in schools. So they had to come together, build this project on uh providing resources to our students on dealing with things from bullying, um, online social media, how to protect yourself from the things that are going on online. And we did not place in that competition, but our students were super excited. They actually got to collaborate with our counseling department as well on that initiative. So it was a great opportunity for our students to engage, but we'll get them next year.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there you go. Very, very cool. And I just I just want to clarify the when when we're talking about clubs and competitions in your role, you're not you're not over like like GCA clubs in the in the more like extracurricular sense of like chess club or like cooking club or or like those different types of clubs. You're you're more focused on like the service and leadership side of clubs. Is that where just to clear?
SPEAKER_00So my primary focus is the service and leadership club. However, I do organize um the general clubs. So when it comes down to creating the registration forms, sending out student surveys to find out what kind of clubs they want, I do coordinate that, building the R SOP on the club's process. So even though I may not be advising the bacon club, I kind of serve as a bridge, so to speak, to bring the teacher facilitators to the students who are requesting those types of clubs and keeping all of those files and and and and presentations organized.
SPEAKER_03I see. So on so on that side of things, yes. Is there any limit to the types of clubs that GCA is offering in in that regard? Or there are there like super random clubs out there, like if there's an interest, like we have a club for it, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00If there is an interest, we have a club for it. And one of the things we do help build our students is having them as well reach out to their existing teachers. So let's say we have there's not one that they want, okay? But there's there's a they want dungeons and dragons, just for instance. If a student wants to do that, they reach out to one of their current or existing teachers, or they reach out to me, and I then try to connect them with a teacher that's willing to facilitate it so that we can provide things that they want versus what we think they want, right? We did do this year, Halton, a survey that went out to our students, stayed open for about two weeks. Were they able to pick from a dropdown of specific clubs, but they were also able to type in three different types of clubs that they actually wanted to see at GCA. We then took that data, got it all quantified, which you know took a minute. We used a little AI with that because that was a lot of data. So that when we sent the registrations to the teachers, the teachers then can't just say, I want to do XYZ club. The teachers have to pick from a dropdown of student interest. So all of the clubs that we have this year are clubs that a student initiated based on the feedback and data we got back from that student interest survey for clubs. So it's really exciting to see what we're gonna offer this year.
SPEAKER_03That's that's amazing. So, how do students then join or get involved, Michelle? So we talked about like these different competitions, these different clubs, and then even these like culture clubs you were mentioning. Like, is there is there a different process for how students join and get involved in each of those? And is there overlap? Like, if I'm a student that wants to be in beta and student council and national honor society, can I be in all of them or do I just have to pick one and like tell tell us a little bit about that process of how students join and get involved, and then even their participation in the club?
SPEAKER_00That's really interesting, Alton, because we just finished our membership drive. So right now I'm just gonna focus on the service and leadership, the the ones with the acronym Beta, NHS, NTHS, those clubs. They are um to receive an initial application, uh the student has to have a minimum GPA. And each club has a different GPA, maybe 2.5, 3.75, 4.0. Again, it just depends on the club. And I do frequently get that question from our students that have those higher 3.5 or 3.75 and above, because they may get an invitation for everything that we offer. Um, what I typically tell them and their parents, and I put in their initial application, is to really sit down and do a pros and cons list and also list out what you want to accomplish this year. Like what are some of your goals? Because what you don't want to do is participate in everything and not be able to fully engage because you're doing too much. So I get that from parents and students. Can I fill out all these? Yes, you can, but can you fulfill the duties of the position? So I typically bounce that right back to my students and my parents to really dig in and see. A lot of times Parton can be driven by wanting that honor, right? Of having that honor cord to walk across the stage, um, for lack of a better word, looking like Mr. T, right, with all the shame, all the honor cords. But those are honors, and it does take a lot of work outside of your general academics to achieve that honor. So I do put that back on my students, and and that's a growth skill for them to really look at what they want to do. Why do I want to do all four? Which one of these clubs? And that also often takes them back to so what does each one of the clubs, what are their purpose? Like, what am I actually interested in? Am I interested in doing something that's gonna align with my CTAE pathway? Or am I interested in doing a club that is gonna represent um my student body? So, with that kind of student, if you want to represent student body and student voice, you may go towards student counsel. That makes sense. But if you're thinking more about your career line and what you want to do, whether it's college and career, you may choose NTHS because those initiatives, those programs, your peers are going to be focused on their pathways. So that's how that part kind of lines up. And I think I forgot the second part of your question because I was talking too long on that one.
SPEAKER_03No, no, no, no. That no, that was good. It it was uh the participation piece. Like once they're actually in the club, what does participation even look like since it's it's online? Are they just you know hanging out in a Zoom meeting and then like you know, doing stuff different things, like what's going on? Did they ever get in person? That sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_00There is always structure, and that's what we've learned about our virtual environment. We are innovators, we are creating great things, but you have to have structure. So I'm gonna give you an example of one of the service and leadership and then one of the generals. So we're talking service and leadership. What I do as an advisor is I create a presentation that may have announcements and things of that nature, things about scholarships opening up, new opportunities for students, collaborate with multiple departments because we do a lot of that here. But then the meeting is turned over to the officers of that club, being the president, vice president, secretary, and so on. We use Robert's rule of order so that the students know how to run their meetings, not only as officers, but as members, so that they know how to bring up motions, they know how to bring up new business, um, they know how to uh table business. So I uh they also have access to Robert's rule of order through our online library, Sora. Um they do actually get that assignment to them through Sora so they can do that. Several of our officers and members have created videos on how to run a meeting. It kind of gives them some guidance. We've created templates on how to do your minutes. So we've found digital ways to do the things that brick and mortars do in our virtual environment using virtual electronics. Um, with the uh other clubs, even that, like say baking club, what we advise for those advisors to do, they have a Canvas course, and all of our sessions are done in Canvas as well through our online management system versus Zoom. Um so the students experience what they do every day. But in our, let's say our baking club, for instance, in her Canvas course, she's gonna have what you know, pre-planned out modules of what each session um the students are gonna be doing. So if there's a supply list or a materials list that's in there for the students, they're sending reminders and announcements. Hey, we're meeting on Friday. Remember to take a look at the materials list if you want to bake ABC or XYZ. So we do pre-planning. It does halt and take a lot of time and effort, but it is worth every moment so that when we get in those rooms, it isn't yes, it's fun, and the students can talk and they engage with each other and they're building and they're planning, but there is there there needs to be, as with everything, structure around it so it doesn't go off the deep end. That makes sense.
SPEAKER_03No, it does. And so that that kind of addressed the piece of like, how do you stay organized with all these clubs and how how do they, you know, how do you overcome it? But it sounds like that's a brilliant idea to have a Canvas course because that probably keeps you all very organized and the students know what to expect and know what's coming. So it sounds like the Canvas course organization piece, and then also having like uh this is what Zoom meetings are gonna look like probably keeps everything organized, yeah?
SPEAKER_00It does, Carlton. Um, do we set up modules for everything from meeting? Presentations from previous meetings, there's service modules with links in there for them to submit their service hours. Um, there's information for them to sign up to compete and not compete, but to serve on different service projects. So let's say we have a Great American Cleanup, which is one of the service projects we do every year for our National Honor Society. In that module, um, Halton will have a registration for students to sign up to receive materials. Being in this virtual environment, when we uh we've always won the grant, so I'm gonna knock on wood that we get it again this year. We get materials that are mailed to the GCA office. Um, I set a registration up in that module, and the students can go in there and request supplies. I then go to the office and mail those things out to the students because not every student has two or three or four cars in the um in the family. There may just be one car and mom's gotta go to work or dad's gotta go to work. So they may not be able to come to the physical GC office and compete in the, not compete, a participate in the group cleanup, but they can clean up the park down the street from their house, right? They can still do that service. So we have those kind of things within the module. So and then they can still upload their pictures and be a part of the scrapbook for the year, um, and and the um information that we send it to Gradomer and Clip to show them what we've done with the funds that we were granted. And we again have won that grant three years in a row, if I'm not mistaken, and I hope it'll be able to get it again this year to look at.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah. How would you say, and you've kind of talked about this a little bit, so you can just add to it, but like how would you say these clubs support like social, emotional growth? So like the students coming together, and and then also like leadership development for students at these different grade levels?
SPEAKER_00So it facilitates a safe environment for student voice, it gives them those opportunities to step into their voice. So I, for instance, had one student who started with me in ninth grade and was very quiet, very shy. She always came to the meetings. Every now and again, she would type in the chat, always had her camera on, always had a smile on her face, but she didn't engage verbally. So it took almost that full school term. I mean, honestly, Halton, that full she didn't again participate in the project. So she was doing what she needed to do, she just wasn't being vocal. By that second year, her mother reached out to me and she said, She's opening up. She's starting to speak what she wants. And she's she's starting to even be able to vocalize what she wants. So that second year, Halton, not only was she a member, but she became the parliamentarian, which made her talk more because she made sure that all the other officers and members were following proper procedure. And she was really good at procedurals. Like that was her, that was her hot spot. Like knowing how things were supposed to go was exciting for her. So her being a parliamentarian and being able to say, interject, president, we need to make sure we do the roll call. You forgot to do the roll call, or interject, committee chair, you didn't do the report out on XYZ. We need to get a new, and that made her start talking. So that was one example, but that goes across the board in so many different areas. Oh, and it's just amazing to me. And I get so excited at four o'clock every day to meet with the students. It's the best part of my day hearing their voice and seeing their voice.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. Yes. And that one example does capture like how you see it here, but that's just the example of like where it's happening throughout throughout the club of like students growing socially or what or whatever, gaining leadership skills. Um I know the role of the staff, the sponsors, the family. Supporting clubs success is huge, I'm sure. So can you tell us a little bit about the role that that the staff, the sponsors, the family engagement plays in supporting this different club success?
SPEAKER_00So it it is pivotal. We actually, Halton, have um, because primarily most of my clubs are secondary grades for service and leadership. So we hold a meeting with Principal Zimmerman once a month. I meet with her to kind of talk through some of the things that we are doing. Um we also have those different staff members come to our meetings. So we've had counseling in our sessions. Um, we've had um the principals which have come to our sessions. Um, I'm trying to think of what I think we had, oh, even your department. We've had Maria Blinko in our marketing department, you yourself and Erin come in so that they can see and talk to the students. So even though I serve as advisor, I need you, and the students love having you come into our sessions and talk to them. So that makes them feel more valuable, right? So then they go and they tell their parents, the director of marketing, or the director, or the guy that does um hootworthy came and talked to us today, or the guy that does unmuted, they just feel so special. And with Erin, the cop that records the videos for GCA, it when they see us as adults, and then all the different departments within GCA come and give them time and listen to them, that makes them feel even when I'm impotent, I can't remember the best word. It just increases their value. They in turn then go and tell their parents about it, and then that gives us even more buy-in for the parents. So when Miss Gilliard goes when Dr. My Beta and says, Hey, we've got this conference in Jekyll, cost $100, but we would love to have your students participate in it. They're like, it's worth it, right? Because in in these times for everyone across the board, a dollar is you've really got to look at how you're spending your money. So it grows that relationship, and they the parents start to see the value in it. Because why spend these extra funds on the swag? Why spend these extra funds, whether it be virtual or in-person conferences or competitions? Um, so that all across the board builds the value. And then also, Alton is when we want to get in front of our student population, because we've gotten these buy-ins from all these different departments, it's easier to get that information out through the different departments on what we're doing because we've built those relationships and they don't have to wonder, well, what are they doing over there? Well, what is that about? You know? So it just building those relationships just helps everything else go smoother because they know who we are and they know our purpose.
SPEAKER_03That's so good. You you you mentioned this earlier about how brick and mortar schools uh try and learn about what you're doing. So could you speak a little bit about what you think uh other virtual schools and these brick and mortar schools, what could they learn from how GCA is doing clubs? How they're building connection with students through clubs, through these competitions, through the wheelhouse that you're doing. You know, you said we're innovators. So in what way?
SPEAKER_00So one of the things that we've done, one particular example, um, and it goes across all clubs, whenever we're doing our students typically meet for club meetings twice per month. How can we get anything done with just that, right? So, what we do offer our students is I have advisor open offices where I open up a club committee class session for an hour and a half for the committees to come together in a room and collaborate. Whether they're building presentations at the beginning or writing scripts, it gives them an opportunity outside of club time where they may have multiple different things going on to focus on one particular service project. And that has helped us when it comes to competition. So let's say they're working on project proposal and they need to practice their scripts, they'll come into that room and they'll practice. Kind of like what they do after school, you know, in brick and mortars, where there's a room for the students and in their clubs, but we do that virtually. Another really good one that I actually shared, I presented at our lead conference for Student Council a couple of years ago, um, where I created a Google form for service hours, and I put in all the required information that our particular clubs require for submitting those service hours and made that digital so that the students can just go in and plug that data in. So that helped the students keep track of their service hours. It helps me keep track of their service hours, and it had another great consequence that I didn't know about initially, but I found out later. So within GCA, if students get 100 service hours, they're able to get credit, there's college credit that they can use for getting those 100 hours. So it made it even easier for me to track monthly, okay, how many does she have, how many does she have, and reach out to that student counselor and just say, hey, without even prompting, hey, XYZ student has hit that. Tell me what we need to do to get this data over to you to get that credit for those students. So um sharing just what we call simple ways to help organize and digitize the data, right? It would be a great help to our brick and mortar schools. And not to say they haven't thought of it, but they didn't need to. So they've never traveled those avenues, right? So they really appreciated having those opportunities. Another one that we do as well, Halton, is for elections. Think about elections. One of the things we do for our elections of our officers is we have them create a biography, which is um, oh, the that was funny, the never mind. We have them create a biography because of our virtual environment, our students may not know each other, right? So even within the biographies, they have differentiation. They can do a video, they can do a word document, or they can do a presentation to let their peers know who they are. Um, to tell what, you know, what their voice is, what they want to do, what they see themselves doing, or if they haven't done leadership in the past, what they want to do. And then within those ballots, Halton, they're able to read the biographies of the students and then vote so that they really know who they're voting for. So on both sides, gives the students the time to really think about who they are and what they want to do. And on the voter side, who am I voting for and why should I vote for this person? So we do some of that, a lot of digitizing.
SPEAKER_03No, that makes a lot of sense. And the fact that you said the brick and mortar maybe hasn't traveled to there because they haven't had to. And so you you have created these digitized systems, as you say, to like really help the logistics and the organization of clubs. And so perhaps brick and mortar schools, virtual schools can kind of adopt and start thinking in that manner.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03This this may get you fired up a little bit more. So don't don't throw your laptop or anything. But what would you say to someone who's like, you know what? Students in virtual schools, they miss out on social connection. They can't they can't have social connection, they can't have clubs, they can't have these competitions, and if they have them, they can't they can't do it well. It's it's just a miss. What would you say to somebody who assumes and says that to you?
SPEAKER_00So I'll first start with every time our school has gone to a competition, we've placed first, second, or third. So that squashes that. Okay, just smash, smash, just with evidence, right? We've got the facts to prove it. Secondly, it's only as good as what you put into it. So you can turtle, right? You can turtle, and what I mean by turtle is get into your shell and never come out, right? But that's your choice. Um, that's your parents' choice, that's your choice as the student. Um, so it it's if you get out of it what you put into it. So I do I put that back on my students and our staff. So even with ourselves, that's that may say, um, our environment is a barrier. No, it's not. Or why are we open? Our environment is not a barrier. Our environment is an opportunity to create new structures that allows our students to engage with each other. Being online just makes it better because these students are connecting to all these digital platforms, you know, and their course and their coursework, all the different programs we have in Clever that they use for testing and for book reading. Why should we we should also be using those digitized platforms for our clubs and social engagement in a safe and safe structured environment? One thing I do not do is have an open session where you just say what you want, do what you want. We shouldn't be doing that even in brick and mortar environments either. So I would say you do get out of it what you put in it, but we as staff here at GCA are actively engaged in that pillar for our strategic plan of creating these engagement activities for our students to be able to socialize outside of specific academics. Um and we're we're doing that, we're doing it marvelously.
SPEAKER_03I love that you get get out what you put in. So leave us with this, Michelle. What is the biggest lesson or a lesson that comes to mind that you've learned about building student community in this online setting? You know, building student community through clubs, competitions, leadership development, that sort of thoughts.
SPEAKER_00So function has to be the best.
SPEAKER_02There's one one that comes to mind or whatever. We won't label it as the best.
SPEAKER_00Okay, we'll just say it's midway. Um I would have to say the ability for these students to collaborate with each other to grow their skills, whether it be banking, student government, crocheting, providing those opportunities that students want, you know, that they've specifically asked for, helps them understand their value. A lot of the times, Halton, what I've found with our students is they don't know their value or they don't understand how valuable they are. And when they get these opportunities to do these extracurricular activities that they enjoy, it grows them. And then they go from that step to the next step, and from that step to the next step. And I think all in all, through all the different club activities, it's the way that we're able to give them those opportunities to collaborate and engage with their peers, and it just it makes them it grows their value and makes them better.
SPEAKER_03And they probably grow, not to not to interrupt, they probably grow because at the in these clubs and in these different leadership things, they're around other peers that are like-minded, that have that share the similar interests, and then so they collaborate and grow together, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. There you go. You summed it out perfectly. And they love that. They love that. I mean, you always want to be, well, say always. Sometimes we would some of our best friends are people that love to do the same things we like to do, right? Even as adults. So giving them those opportunities as students um has been very fulfilling. It's it's the best part of my day.
SPEAKER_03So here's today's big idea. When students are given opportunities to lead, create, and connect, community doesn't just survive in a virtual school, it thrives. So thanks again to Dr. Michelle Gilliard for joining us and sharing her passion for student engagement. And if this episode gave you a new look at what virtual student life can be, be sure to subscribe and join us next time on GCA unmuted for voices of virtual education. Thanks, Michelle.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Audi.