Online Learning Communities

What are the essential elements of online community building?

According to Dr. Rena Palloff (2012) the essential elements of the online community are people, purpose and process.  By creating the right aspects and combinations of these things i can make a successful online learning community.

People includes everyone involved in the online learning meaning both students and instructors.  The purpose is what everyone is doing in the online course.  The purpose is what unites the people.  The process is the means by which the community is developed and the learning takes places.  You must have all three of these elements in order to build and online community.  Without the people the can not be a community.  Without a purpose to unite the people they would simply be a group of people and not a community.  And without a process the community would fall apart because there would be no structure to keep it together. 

How do online learning communities significantly impact both student learning and satisfaction within online courses?

The online learning community is what sets the tone for the student.  It's the same as a neighborhood community.  The community surrounding your home could contribute to whether you love or hate it.  The online learning community can enhance the student's learning experience and create a higher level of satisfaction.  A student could take the same exact class twice and have two completely different experiences depending on the other students and the instructor and the process of the course.  

For an example in my undergraduate degree I took Introduction to Biology twice.  The first time I took it with a great faculty member who was the head of the department in a lecture hall with 300 students.  He went the through the information very quickly wrote a lot of notes and it was a very impersonal course.  When I took it the second time there were 20 students in the course and the professor made sure we understood and challenged us to think.  I learned more and was much more satisfied in the second course.

What is the relationship between community building and effective online instruction?

The community and the online instruction are interdependent on one another.  Certain types of communities work better for certain types of instruction.  There is no one size fits all answer.  When developing online instruction it should be known what types of environment the learning will take place.  An asynchronous course may have a different process than a synchronous online course.  Each needs to adapt to the other.  If the instruction and content have been created then the instructor should help the students by creating a process best suited to that type of learning.  And vice versa if the community is already set than the instruction should be created to fit that type of learning community.

How can online learning communities be sustained?

Online learning communities can be sustained by engaging the learners in a way that creates a sense of community to which they would like to belong.  Back to my metaphor of the neighborhood community.  I am sure each of us knows of a community where we would love to live.  If that community were to suddenly change negatively the people would want to leave the neighborhood that they once loved.  The same is true for sustaining online communities.  The people and processes and purpose need to all fit together in a pleasant way for the students.  We want to create online learning communities that students want to be a part of. 

What did you learn that will help you become a more effective instructor in the future?

I learned that my role as the instructor is just as important as the learning content.  The instructor can set the tone for the online learning community.  The instructor can monitor the learning community and keep the purpose on target.  As an instructor I can facilitate the experience to help the learners engage with the learning content.  I can ask more questions to prompt more thought.  I can make sure the learners stay on target with their learning.  "What a faculty mentor does makes a difference in what students do- that is, in what students learn and in what concepts and skills students may or may not develop" (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010).  There is a great responsibility to me to make sure students have a positive learning experience. 

 

References

Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2012).  and Dr. Keith Pratt  Online Learning Communities. Laureate Inc.