Heightened exposure to online courses in recent years has brought awareness to the education field about how difficult it is to create a community of learners in an online setting. In their e-text "Introduction to systematic instructional design for traditional, online, and blended environments, first edition" M. D. Roblyer (2014) discusses different techniques that can be used to create online learning communities, including instructor guidance, discussion boards, and different means of student collaboration. Instructor guidance is the most crucial part of a learning community. Without an instructor to guide discussion or collaboration, students would have a difficult time coming together as learners. It is the instructors job to create a learning environment that is receptive to their students and creates opportunities for collaboration (Roblyer, 2014, p.160-161). The instructor can do this through many means, announcement pages with instruction, the course syllabus, video lectures, and even through guided discussion on a forum.
Discussion forums are a way for an online community to communicate with one another. Also known as discussion boards in some cases, they are a way for students and instructors to have collaborative discussions about learning topics that are being taught in class. They can even be social, through introduction posts and opinion forums that could be posted throughout the course. Since having 25-30 students posting on one forum can be a lot to sift through, Roblyer suggests breaking these forums into small groups of 6-8 students at a time (2014, p 171-172). Having a place in an online course to discuss with other students is a great way to promote a community of inquiry and collaboration in online learning.
Student collaboration can be difficult to implement into an online setting, but can be done in many meaningful ways that can help build a community. Roblyer suggests implementing interaction between students, as it has many social and educational benefits (2014, p.171). One example of collaboration can be through peer review. In peer review, two or more students are paired together to review each other's work, give feedback, and learn from one another.
The method that appeals to me most has to be the discussion board. Hearing feedback about my ideas from my peers and instructors makes me feel heard and seen in an online community. Reading what my classmates think of a topic and comparing it to my own thoughts expands my worldview, and makes me want to research further into the topic. In a community of learning, it is important to have that type of collaborative discussion with your peers. Discussion boards can also become a more social aspect of the class, where you can share your current happenings with your community. Its flexibility to share personal and educational information makes it an important strategy to build connections in an online community.
Work Cited
Roblyer, M. D. (2014). Chapter 8 Organizing Traditional, Online, and Blended Learning Environments. In Introduction to Systematic Instructional Design for Traditional, Online, and Blended Environments, First Edition (pp. 160–178). story, Pearson+ Multi, PXE.
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