Online Teaching: Community Building

Online courses are becoming an increasingly popular method of college instruction, and instructors are facing the problem of moving face-to-face courses into online environments. Two models are emerging: massively open online courses and the smaller, "residential college" model. The study explored how a face-to-face human communication course moved online, fulfilled the learning objectives, developed a sense of community, and fostered collaborative group work by using active learning techniques in synchronous and asynchronous environments. The study describes how those problems were addressed and offers recommendations for creating online courses that build communities of learners and foster collaboration rather than emphasizing the delivery of content to thousands of individuals.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a specific online pedagogical tool, "Digital Moments" that can be an effective strategy for building online communities in a knowledge building environment. While the paper will examine the specific techniques and teaching methodologies that enabled the authors to create authentic online learning experiences in undergraduate and graduate courses, it also analyses how and why this strategy moves beyond simple constructivist thinking to the complexities of teaching in the digital world. Knowledge building in online environments requires students to take risks, try new digital tools, and find the modalities that work best to express the new knowledge they are creating. This pedagogical approach views students as more than consumers of technology, but creators of new and innovative digital means of expressing concepts. Using both synchronous and asynchronous methodologies, the authors examined the highs and lows of translating meaningful face to face practice to the online environment. The paper examines teaching strategies used in a six week online graduate course using Adobe connect, Blackboard LMS and synchronous weekly meetings. Through the use of unique strategies such as "digital moments" and embracing creative thought, an authentic, constructivist community was created. The authors' journey to developing this authenticity, their online pedagogical style and an innovative, safe learning community has been chronicled using narrative qualitative inquiry in this paper. The writers' use of digital moments empowers students to create and have ownership of their own online community. This paper articulates their journey into the abyss of digitizing themselves as teachers; it examines the specific techniques used for best practice in online learning, while simultaneously celebrating the splash of colour that is essential to brighten digital learning environments.

The authors critically analyze how the concept of the drama triangle--part of the game theory associated with transactional analysis--can be used by post secondary instructors teaching online to build a sense of community and decrease students' dependence on instructors in discussion forums. The article begins with an overview of sense of community, followed by a detailed discussion on the drama triangle and its applicability to online instruction and discussion forum management. Observational data as an online instructor are presented in order to illustrate how drama triangle interactions in the online environment can stall sense of community formation. In addition, the authors provide online instructors with specific strategies for recognizing and avoiding instructor-student interactions that promote the rescuing, victim, and persecutor behaviors that detract from sense of community formation.

The purpose of this case study was to assess a history instructor's attempt to redesign an introductory history survey course. Traditionally, it has been taught in a face-to-face environment within the university's core curriculum program. It was redesigned as a synchronous online course that provided students with opportunities to work collaboratively to build a community of inquiry and to develop the analytical skills needed to understand course materials and compete in the 21st-century workforce. Students were required to attend daily 100-minute web conferencing sessions consisting of mini-lectures, polling questions and discussions in large and small groups (i.e., "breakout rooms"). Daily quizzes were introduced to incentivize students to complete the assigned readings and help them prepare to contribute meaningfully to group discussions, as well as to allow the instructor to assess student understanding objectively. Students completed a modified Community of Inquiry Survey at the end of the course. Results showed that the instructor was able to build a strong level of community of inquiry, teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence.