Building an Online Learning Community

Kosar Dakhilalian; Natalie Currie-Patterson

Teaching and Learning in Online Environment

28 Building an Online Learning Community

“Today it is not necessary for us to physically situated in our communities; instead, we can carry them with us in our pockets and backpacks. We do not have to interact with other community members face-to-face, in real-time; rather, our communications can be and are often asynchronous.”

Citation: (Major, 2015,p. 228)

Community is fundamentally built in relationships. Schwier (2011 as cited in Howell Major, 2015, p. 227) defines community as “collections of people who are bound together for some reason, and that reason defines the boundary of the community.”

In this chapter, we will learn about

The characteristics of online communities
Community and Communities of Inquiry
Promoting Community Building
Strategies for Building Community

Meaning of community in the online learning environment

Research has shown that learning communities can work to enhance intellectual growth, cognitive skills, and educational attainment (Pascarella & Terenzini. 2005). Such research is premised in the ways that community can be fostered through face-to-face interactions such as student groups, block scheduling, and housing arrangements.

In the online learning environment community is developed and structured in different ways than in face-to-face interactions. As you engage the material below consider the ways that communities you have been a part of (learning, interest, geographic, or other) have developed, your roles in those communities, and how those communities have provided support to members.

Importance of community for learning in online courses

Students in online courses can feel isolated (Blackman & Major, 2012); making connections and getting to know one’s peers, instructors, and teaching assistants can be difficult in a learning environment that is often asynchronous.

Putting a focus on, and effort into, creating community in an online course can help to combat student isolation and increase engagement.

Communities of Inquiry

The Communities of Inquiry (CoI) model put forth by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) describes the ways learning takes place for groups of individual learners through educational experiences. The model describes the ways that learning takes place at the intersection of the social, cognitive, and teaching presence.

Social presence can be understood as the ability of learners to reflect/include their personality in ways that allow connections and inter-personal relationships to develop and may support identification with the community.

Cognitive presence is the ways and extent to which learners can engage in reflection and discourse related to course materials in order to make meaning.

Teaching presence is “the design, facilitation, and direction of the social and cognitive processes for the purpose of realizing the relevant learning outcomes” (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001, p. 4).

A modification to this model, as depicted in the visual below, created by CPI’s Director of Teaching and Learning, Giulia Forsythe, positions the educational experience at the intersection of the affective (emotional expression), cognitive (trigger event, integration, and resolution), and teaching presence (facilitation and direct instruction).

Diagram displaying the relationship between teaching, cognitive and affective presence on a student's educational experience

Promoting Communities of Inquiry

How can we help to create and sustain positive and productive online learning communities in our classes?

Earlier in this chapter, we considered what community means and reviewed models of community in the online learning environment: Communities of Inquiry and Fully Online Learning Communities.

We will consider and discuss ways you can intentionally and strategically plan opportunities to support the creation and maintenance of community within your class.

Creating opportunities to foster community in your online classroom

In her text Teaching Online: A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice Claire Howell Major (2015) puts forth six strategies to help foster community in the online environment. These strategies are summarized in the infographic below

Infographic based on Howell Major (2015) 1 social presence 2 opportunities to share info and expertise 3 safe classrooms 4 common space 5 technological tools 6 collaborative learning opportunities

You can access and download both Pdf Strategies for Building Community Online of the infographic as well as an accessible document: Strategies for Community Building Online document.

Some ideas on ways to support the development of community in the online classroom

Introduce yourself to students – consider creating a short video, audio, or visual introduction
Allow students an opportunity to introduce themselves – encourage them to use their preferred medium
Co-construct agreements within the group about behaviours and expectations
Clearly communicate expectations around communication for student-to-student and student-to-TA interactions
Seek feedback from your students, reflect on that feedback, and discuss it with your students
Where possible and appropriate (at times you are limited in your role as a TA) build interaction and interactivity into your learning plan
Where possible and appropriate provide opportunities to build interaction into assessments (e.g. would students benefit from peer assessment?)
Be approachable and present in the online environment
Solicit and accepting of student questions
Provide opportunities to engage one another through both formal course content and in other ways (e.g. a “coffee chat” forum or frequently asked question space where students may engage in conversation, ask and answer questions)

Dr. Simmons (Faculty of Education, Brock University) discusses some of the strategies she has used to create community in online classes as well as some of the lessons learned through this COVID time.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0_IEJ5eroFE%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26wmode%3Dopaque%26rel%3D0

Direct Link: Click here(this link opens in a new window/tab)