Online Learning Communities
Online learning communities are where people come together for one purpose-to learn online and through a process-how the course is delivered. These communities significantly impact both students and learning as well as satisfaction within online courses where students share their experiences and constructs their own understanding of any given information. Clark (1998) advices that online learning communities should be grown, not build because they are strongest when grown by members into unique and supportive environment. Students in online learning environment gain knowledge through constructing meaning and challenging one another as they professionally support and give feedback to each other. Further, learning dynamic is created in the communities where the instructor becomes a member of the learning communities despite his/her own roles and responsibilities.
Some essential elements of online community building include the triple "P" that Dr. Palloff has talked about in the video. She stated that it takes people, purpose, and process to build effective online learning community. According to her, the people consists of students from all over the world with potentially different cultural values and varied learning styles. Clark (1998) asserted that learning communities need strong leaders because leaders are needed to define the environment, keep it safe, give its purpose, identity and keep it growing. Therefore, there is the need for instructors to motivate and engage students in the online learning communities. They also need to use research-based strategies to bring online learners together as communities. The second element, which is the purpose of the online learning community building is that people work as a community in the shared learning goals and objectives. This purpose is achieved when learners help one another through sharing ideas and experiences in the form of discussion and mutual encouragements. Then a social present is developed in the learning communities that facilitate communication amongst learners through texts, email, blogs, discussion, and so forth.The third essential element of online communities building mentioned in the video was the process. According to Dr. Palloff, process is the way the course is delivered. There are other administrative issues that are essential in the online community building. These include how to engage students; institutional guidelines and policies; the way classes are constructed, and the way online content is being delivered.
Online learning communities can be sustained by carefully designing the learning environment from the constructivist perspective. Instructional designers can ensure that the structure of a course supports the health of the online community (Palloff & Pratt, 2011). Additionally, they must include the necessary structure that will encourage students to collaborate by creating appropriate rules of conduct and learning activities, including well-designed questions that encourage interactive creativity on the part of the learners. On the other hand, instructors should rigorously engage learners in meaningful learning as well as emmpowering them to be responsible for their own learning using collaborative activities. I learned in this week's video that the first two weeks into a new course is very crutial in building and sustaining an online learning communities. At this stage, facilitators are continuously measuring levels of students' participation and are able to recognize when a student suddenly withdraws. This situation possibly signals a need for the facilitator to slow down and fill in gaps in the individual student’s conceptual background. If necessary, phone call or email should be sent to the individual to show concern. They can also strengthen the learning community as needed by scheduling live chat or conference calls over telephone using Skype. Additionally, an online orientation model could be done where students will be allowed to express their past experiences as well as given them tutorial that will familiarize them with the Course Management System (CMS). Further, facilitators should make comments that guide discussions and model profitable online behavior. Such comments should focus not only on the immediate learning objectives, but should also encourage students to consider how they will use what they are learning in the future (Palloff & Pratt, 2011).
The relationship between community building and effective online instruction is that community building is the primary means of providing effective and meaningful learning environment to the learners. When students interact in groups, it builds connections between course content and their prior knowledge. While videos, books, articles, and graphics can as well present information, building and maintaining a learning community is more important to online learners than any other activity a facilitator undertakes (Palloff & Pratt, 2011). Engaging, involving, and encouraging learner-learner interaction is crucial in online learning environment. Instructors are not suppose to leave the students without regularly interacting with them and perhaps go on vacation. This behavior hurts the building of the community although the online instruction has been set up. Personally, I see a strong community building in Mark's announcement of his get away during the week 6 of this course. Mark has demonstrated that instructors cannot leave for vacation, leaving students on their own even though the instruction is online. Despite the time frame of his vacation, yet he has already assigned another facilitator who would take over when he is gone. This makes students feel safe and when students feel safe and confident in an online learning environment, their satisfaction is increased because of their feel of belongingness in the community.
I would like to conclude my online learning communities assignment with Caleb John Clark's quote that "A good environment, good leaders, with a healthy dose of personal narrative tilled into the cybersoil, helps grow strong online learning communities where real learning and thinking can bloom".
References
Dr. Rena Palloff and Dr. Keith Pratt define “Online Learning Communities” and highlight the benefits of creating a learning community for facilitators of online learning experiences.
http://www.noendpress.com/caleb/olc/3Principles_Online_Comm.pdf
