In the following,
I discuss the processes I use in one of my online course (EDUC 518) in order to
build online learning communities. EDUC 518, Technology and Pedagogy, is a fully online course in an Educational Learning Technologies’
master’s program at a medium-sized university in the U.S. Southwest.
Building Community From the First Day
of the Class
In
my online course, I provide activities that assist students to connect with
peers and to build relationships from the beginning of the course. The first
assignment asks students to introduce themselves to their classmates with the
purpose of helping students find others with whom they can build a
collaborative relationship. I find
that the introductory activity is quite successful in assisting students to
develop collegial relationships and to help them to get to know each other
early on in the course. The introductory activity effectively enables students
to locate compatible colleagues with similar interests to support further
collaborative work on assignments and projects. In my online courses, the
introductory activity does not require anything more than the ability to
express knowledge of self. In the introductory activity, I ask students to
provide information about 1) something personal (married, kids, hometown,
hobbies, etc.), 2) something about their professional and educational
background, and 3) favorite video, favorite song, favorite spoken piece,
favorite website, and/or favorite photo/image; thus expanding the range of
personal information to be shared with the class. Students are also required to
respond to each other.
Using Web
2.0 Technologies
I extensively use Web 2.0
tools in my online course to foster students’ sense of community. In the first
unit, I ask students to create a Skype account, a Gmail account, and a Twitter
account and send me a message using these tools. The purpose is to help
students be familiar with these tools before they actually use them during the
semester. In the next unit, I use Twitter to facilitate class discussion. I ask
students to read about the week’s topic, and then tweet about what they learned
from that week’s reading assignment using the course hashtag #EDUC518. Students
are also required to reply to at least two other students’ tweets.
Additionally,
students are required to create blogs through Blogger and engage in
conversations through these blogs. The students are to blog in reaction to a
prompt. Then they are required to read and comment on each other’s blogs. The
course assigns five blogs. Rubrics are used to grade students’ blogs and grade
their feedback to each other. In another unit, students are asked to
collaborate using Skype and Google Doc to create a lesson plan. Besides, at the
beginning of each unit, I use Screencast-o-matic to give students an overview
of the unit and to increase students’ sense of belonging in the course. I find
that using Web 2.0 technologies help connect students through these various forms of
communication. Particularly, the use of blogs and Twitter helped to build a
learning community through dialogue and conversation among students.
Using Threaded Discussions
Threaded
discussions are used to encourage students’ sense of community. The course uses Canvas’s threaded discussion feature to conduct
asynchronous discussions. There are three discussion forums in the course. In
each discussion forum, I post three questions, each as a separate thread.
Students are expected to respond to each of the three threads and then react to
the responses of a minimum of two peers. By replying to each other’s
posts, students have the opportunity to work collaboratively with each other to
expand and deepen their learning experience, test out new ideas by sharing them
with their classmates, and receive critical and constructive feedback. Students
are also required to include references and citations to relevant articles that
support their argument. The discussion activities have clear
instructions about how much time is involved in participation in the
discussion. The discussions are graded using a rubric that assigns points
according to the level of engagement.
Additionally,
there is an ungraded discussion, titled “Get or Give Help Here”, where students
are encouraged to post any questions they may have and to help each other. This
discussion area became a gathering place where students could engage with each
other outside of the regular or required discussion assignments. The focus here
is to provide a safe place for students to connect without having to feel like
they are being evaluated.
Pairing Students in Activities
Once
students have gotten to know one another on a social level through the
introductory activity, Canvas’s threaded
discussions, and blog discussions, peer partnership activities are utilized. The
purpose of pairing learners for an activity is to help them to develop a sense
of community and to prepare them for team activities. Around the midterm, I
design a Dyad activity in which students are asked to find a partner to work
together. In
the Dyad activity, students are asked to work with a partner of their choice to
investigate a specific topic and use the results of their interaction to
prepare a joint posting to the discussion board. Two weeks
before the Dyad activity starts, students are asked to select their partners in
order to give them enough time so that the selection process can occur. Student
evaluation in the Dyad activity is based on: 1) the quality of the discussion which
is assessed using a discussion rubric, 2) peer evaluation using a rubric, and 3) reply to at least 2 other students' posts.
Encouraging Collaborative Activities
After
a peer partnership activity has been completed, students are asked to create
their own collaborative groups. The students who worked on the Dyad activity have
the freedom to combine their small groups into larger teams for collaborative
activities or to create new groups. Students are asked to create their groups two
weeks before the collaborative activity will start in order to give students
enough time so that the selection process can occur. Additionally, before
working in the collaborative activity, students are provided with a written explanation
of the importance of the collaborative work as well as instructions for
completing it. Students are also given guidance to establish
group polices and procedures and suggestions of collaborative technology tools that
can be used (See Figure 4). Before working in the
group activity, the students are asked to use a group contact template
suggested by Conrad and Donaldson (2004). This document suggests
that the group members specify the primary method of and frequency of
communication, make contingency plans for emergencies, and decide whether or
not to select a group leader. The contract allows group members to create a
group management plan for the semester’s activities. Additionally, before
working in the collaborative activity, students are asked to participate in a
practice exercise for group development. With this class, a graded activity,
titled The Critical Insight Activity, is used. The purpose is to help students
to practice their group polices and procedures and to practice collaborative
technology tools. Student grading in the collaborative activity is based on: 1)
the quality of the content that is graded using a rubric and 2) peer evaluation
in which students are asked to assess each other’s performance on the team
using a rubric.
During
the group work, I offer suggestions throughout the creation process, act as a
mediator when needed in various groups throughout the semester, and have the final
word when problems arose. The contracts were effective in that all groups
completed a product or project according to the specifications given in the
syllabus. Groups typically handled their problems according to their contracts
before asking me for help in this area. Most groups
followed the contracts they created without
difficulty, but when difficulties arose that the group could not handle, the
members sought help from me. The group
contracts helped to build a subset of the community (small groups) within the
larger community (the class). In addition, the contracts helped to facilitate
group interaction and cohesion by subtly forcing group members to look at the
various personalities, skills, and workloads involved in their group.
Conclusion
The literature provides evidence that students’
sense of community is critical to student success in online
environments. Thus, building
and sustaining strong learning communities should be an essential dynamic in
virtual classrooms. We
educators should intentionally work to build and foster learning communities
among students in online courses. A review of the literature suggests that
instructors teaching at a distance may promote sense of community by 1)
building a learning community from the first day of the class, 2) using Web 2.0
technologies 3) using threaded discussions, 4) pairing students in activities
before collaborative work, and 5) encouraging collaborative activities. In my
online course, I intentionally draw on these processes in order to build
learning communities among my students. I need to continue to evaluate and
revise these processes in order to effectively build and sustain learning
communities in my online courses. Yet, building online learning communities is
a difficult task. However, doing so is an integral step for improving learning
and teaching in online environments, and thus work in this area should
continue.
