Connecting Across Virtual Space: Creating Community through Care

What is this research about?

There are many advantages to online learning, including making education more accessible. However, research has documented that students in online learning environments show less engagement with material and less connection with peers compared to in-person learning experiences. One school of thought proposes that this is a circular problem: a lack of community within online classrooms decreases student engagement, which in turn decreases the student’s sense of community.

Although there has been research on how to increase student engagement and community-building, nearly all of this work has been done in traditional in-person classrooms. The authors of this paper suggest we should not be trying to “fit” pre-existing in-person engagement strategies into the online learning space, but rather to focus on developing specific strategies for the virtual context. Using 12 years of student data, the authors propose multiple care-based actions that instructors can implement in their online classrooms to improve engagement and promote a sense of belonging.

What did the researchers do?

The authors used a longitudinal approach, looking at 12 years of student data on their own online teaching. This included student course evaluation feedback and unsolicited email feedback provided by students. They looked for patterns within the data to identify actions or activities that improved student engagement and built community in the virtual classroom.

What did the researchers find?

To help categorize their findings, the authors used Noddings’ framework of Moral Education to group similar ideas. This is a seminal framework within care-based pedagogy, which sees caring relationships as a vital component of teaching and learning. Noddings’ framework proposed that actions focusing on caring relationships in teaching can be grouped into four categories: Modelling, Dialogue, Practice and Confirmation.

Below are descriptions of each component of Noddings’ framework, along with activities identified by the study authors as being particularly helpful in online teaching:

1. Modelling: The instructor demonstrates care for their students and their learning. In the online environment, this might look like:
   • Setting the tone for the course through written text on your course shell. Use warm, positive, and inclusive language.
   • Being present and responsive for student inquiries, while making response-time boundaries explicit (for example, not answering email on weekends). Students value immediacy and responsiveness in online communication.
   • Demonstrating compassion through flexibility and an open invitation for student support. This could include granting assignment extensions, or ensuring students have multiple ways to attend synchronous classes (e.g., attending Zoom by video or calling in from a phone).

2. Dialogue: The instructor and students have conversations about care or caring. In online classrooms, this can be done by:
   • Offering multiple means of communication in the online space (video chat, audio-only, using text-based chat features, discussion boards, Google Docs, etc.). Discuss explicitly how some learners may have a preference for different mediums.
   • Engaging students early in the term in a discussion to set expectations for effective, respectful conversations and communication that will take place throughout the course.

3. Practice: Students are given opportunities to practice care in the learning environment. Instructors can facilitate this virtually by:
   • Building-in opportunities for students to explore their own sense of why they care about course material through practice-based learning. Help them develop into a practitioner of their discipline, rather than a passive recipient.
   • Designing assignments and other learning activities to have collaborative aspects where students engage with one another.

4. Confirmation: The instructor provides feedback on students’ caring actions, emphasizing the impact on those around them. This can be achieved through:
   • Providing timely, specific feedback for students on their engagement with course material and their peers in addition to knowledge of learning objectives.
   • Giving students encouragement and affirmation. Share stories from your own experiences when you were in the learner’s position. Emphasize the continuous journey of learning, and that students are the next generation of practitioners in your field. As the authors put it, you are “passing the baton”.

How can you use this research?

The authors offer descriptions of several care-based online teaching strategies that help with student engagement and community-building within their specific contexts. The ideas offered in this manuscript can be a jumping-off point for instructors looking to foster a sense of community and improve engagement in their online classes. This paper also highlights the benefit of retrospectively looking at multiple years of student feedback. A retrospective viewpoint offers the opportunity of being able to see patterns across multiple iterations of the same course.

Authors:

Katie Burke, PhD, is an Arts Curriculum and Pedagogy Lecturer within the Teaching Education programme at the University of South Queensland (Australia).

Stephen Larmar, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer within the School of Human Services and Social Work at Griffith University (Australia).

Reference:

Burke, K., & Larmar, S. (2020). Acknowledging another face in the virtual crowd: Reimagining the online experience in higher education through an online pedagogy of care. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2020.1804536