how to foster community in an online course

6 Strategies for Building Community in Online Courses

1. Create a Plan for Communication. Communication is essential to community, and it is a good idea to model effective...
2. Establish Social Presence. Social presence, or the sense that individuals have that they are interacting with real...
3. Meet in Real-Time. It’s not always possible (or even desirable) to...

Full Answer

Can you build an online community around your courses?

In fact, there are plenty of online course platforms that offer all the features you’ll need to create a thriving online community of your own. Some instructors may neglect the community aspect of their courses since they aren’t seeing and interacting with their students on a regular basis.

Why are online courses so popular in higher education?

This is why they are so popular, especially in higher education. In online learning, community participants create an interactive canvas of diverse reactions and feedback. They find ways to explore, to think, to innovate, to develop skills, and to seek conceptual understanding- things they wouldn’t achieve on their own.

Can you build a strong classroom culture online?

In my years of teaching virtually, I found that culture can be built in the online setting, but it requires different strategies based on trust, respect, and responsibility. These are the steps I use to build a strong classroom culture online.

Should you hold live events for your online course?

Holding live streams to the public can be a great way to establish yourself as a subject matter expert in your field and get people familiar with you as a trusted resource. Plus your live events can be repurposed into videos and other types of resources for the course after the fact.

How do you build community and foster engagement in online courses?

Asynchronous discussion boards are some of the most common methods of building and fostering communities in online courses. When designing online courses instructors should consider the priority they will place on discussion boards and how to best communicate goals to students.

How do you foster social presence in online classes?

Eight Ways to Increase Social Presence in Your Online ClassesA welcome letter. ... A personalized introduction. ... Make good use of email. ... Use course announcements frequently. ... Take advantage of the discussion board. ... Use synchronous communication to enhance social presence. ... Try Web 2.0 tools for fun and collaboration.More items...•

What are ways that you can foster community in your classroom?

How to Build Community in the ClassroomCreate human values for learning. ... Co-construct behaviors around these values. ... Build culture and climate with goals. ... Develop a shared conflict-resolution language. ... Establish SEL routines. ... Play around with routines during SEL mini-lessons.

How can you encourage participation in an online class?

How to increase student participation in online discussions#1: Embed online discussion into course design. ... #2: Explain why participation is required. ... #3: Require quality, not quantity. ... #4: Provide feedback to everyone. ... #5: Don't worry about introverts. ... #6: Provide guidelines for constructive conversation.More items...

How can online class increase social interaction?

Promote language that people want to engage with, and that people are persuaded by. Challenging students and driving them to be more articulate through the use of discussion boards help develop communication skills that students take with them beyond their education.

What is social presence in the online classroom?

In the context of online learning, social presence is described as the ability of learners to project themselves socially and emotionally as well as their ability to perceive other learners as 'real people'.” (Boston et al., 2010, p. 68).

What are 5 ways to encourage community in the classroom?

5 Strategies for Building Community in the ClassroomHold Weekly Class Meetings. A simple but effective way to build classroom community is to hold meetings with your class once a week. ... Focus on Gratitude. ... Work Together Toward a Shared Goal. ... Give Daily Shout-Outs or Compliments. ... Let Students Have a Voice.

How do you build community in your classroom using collaboration?

Teacher Collaboration The best way to build communities in the classroom is to start with the teachers in a school. Whether the community is a cross-curricular team or content specific, it's important to have a functioning team. Similar to the students you receive, you do not get to hand-pick your team members.

How do you create a positive community?

Positive communities may differ in what they encourage, but overall, ten characteristics tend to make for a successful community.Common goals. ... Freedom of expression. ... Address member concerns with sensitivity. ... Set clear policies and obligations. ... Fairness. ... Celebrate heritage and traditions. ... Promote interaction among members.More items...•

How do you engage online students?

Student engagement in online learning – what works and whyBe present.Create interesting learning materials.Provide 1-to-1 sessions.Assign some group work.Create an online forum for discussions.Provide and ask for a regular feedback.Challenge students.

How do you encourage class participation?

How do I encourage participation?Foster an ethos of participation. ... Teach students skills needed to participate. ... Devise activities that elicit participation. ... Consider your position in the room. ... Ask students to assess their own participation. ... Ensure that everyone's contributions are audible.More items...

Why do instructors neglect community?

Some instructors may neglect the community aspect of their courses since they aren’t seeing and interacting with their students on a regular basis. But a community can be a crucial part of building a successful online learning program. Students need the support and motivation that a community can help provide.

Why is it important to showcase students?

In all of these cases, showcasing successful students will give your brightest students a boost of confidence and it will also motivate all of your other students once they see what is possible. Showcasing students can also double as a promotional tool. You can use it as proof that your course works on your sales page.

What should an instructor do?

In a traditional classroom, an instructor can interact with students and build a sense of community with all members at once. They can openly talk about the course and answer questions, as well as just chat casually to create a bond with their students.

How to spice things up in a course?

A great way to spice things up a bit in your course is to bring in special guest speakers. You might just get someone different to record some of your course videos, just so that it isn’t always the same face and voice that your students are listening to. Highly Recommended.

Why do conversations arise naturally in a physical classroom?

You’ll need to get students involved as well to create a real community. Conversations arise more naturally in a physical classroom, just because of the nature of it. People love to chat and get to know their fellow classmates while waiting for the course to begin.

Why is it important to create a relationship with your peers?

Creating a relationship with a student’s peers makes them more comfortable when it comes to asking questions, speaking up, or voicing their opinion. Studies have shown that they’re also just more likely to be successful with the course overall (source), and a community also increases student satisfaction.

Can you give online classes in person?

There’s no reason you can’t give online students the same sort of community experience they’d get from attending a class in person. An important part of making your online community is to set clear expectations at the beginning. Let students know which hours you’ll be online to chat if your course has a chatroom.

7 Ways To Cultivate A Supportive Learning Community

The only way you can create a supportive online learning community is by understanding what your corporate learners require. Every employee has unique expectations regarding the online learning community. For example, some may take a more hands-on approach and are looking for daily interactions with remote peers.

Conclusion

A supportive online learning community amplifies the benefits of your online training course by offering corporate learners a solid framework. They feel like they’re part of the group, instead of outsiders who are doing it alone. This can also increase their motivation and facilitate emotional connection.

7 Ways To Cultivate A Supportive Learning Community

The only way you can create a supportive online learning community is by understanding what your corporate learners require. Every employee has unique expectations regarding the online learning community. For example, some may take a more hands-on approach and are looking for daily interactions with remote peers.

Conclusion

A supportive online learning community amplifies the benefits of your online training course by offering corporate learners a solid framework. They feel like they’re part of the group, instead of outsiders who are doing it alone. This can also increase their motivation and facilitate emotional connection.

Why is community important in school?

A strong sense of community is even more crucial when transitioning to remote and online learning environments, as students and instructors can easily feel isolated. Remote or online learning can make community-building seem more ...

How can school leaders use social media?

School leaders can use social media platforms to re-establish a sense of normalcy for students to carry out simple routines that once characterized an average day. Take, for instance, one Maine school principal who broadcasts morning announcements, complete with the Pledge of Allegiance, via Facebook Live each morning.

Why do teachers gamify?

Teachers can also gamify the classroom in order to provide asynchronous learning opportunities. Online and mobile educational gaming resources can contribute to student engagement, material comprehension and classroom community-building. Schoology has some fun ways to gamify classrooms, including resources like Kahoot! and virtual escape rooms.

What can a class do to celebrate?

Classes can sing songs together, send virtual well-wishes and share a virtual snack to celebrate. Old-school technology is also useful for celebrating small milestones: classes can host drive-by parties or dedicate class time for creating cards they mail to each other.

Is it possible to build a community online?

Remote or online learning can make community-building seem more difficult , but it is possible. In fact, there are several ways to foster a similar sense of community in remote learning environments.

Can school spirit events be translated into digital spaces?

Lunchtime socializing, homeroom announcements and school spirit events can all be translated into digital spaces. Moving to remote or online learning platforms does not have to translate to a loss of these routines and rituals.

Why are online learning communities important?

Online learning communities are essential to achieve a productive online learning environment. This is why they are so popular, especially in higher education. In online learning, community participants create an interactive canvas of diverse reactions and feedback. They find ways to explore, to think, to innovate, to develop skills, ...

Why is it important to have an online class?

During the early part of an online course, it is critical for class members to get to know one another, and learn to share things from an online class community.

Why do instructors struggle to make learners participate in the discussion board?

However, most instructors struggle to make learners participate in the discussion board because learners attend the courses in their time-space. However, there are ways that you can use to gradually establish participation and, in the end, a real sense of community.

What is sharing in learning?

Sharing is thinking together, negotiating, collaborating, and co-creating. These are the main elements of productive communities of learning. The cycles of sharing, commenting, responding, synthesizing among learners promote community-building emotions since learners no longer focus solely on their understanding.

Is e-learning a good thing?

Since the early days of e-learning, its benefits have significantly outweighed those of face-to-face training. The rapid growth of the internet and mobile devices has made e-learning flexible, time-saving, and cost-effective in training. This has highlighted e-learning as an essential part of education market growth.

Is learning a social act?

Learning is a social act by itself. We learn through contact and discourse with another person more competent in the field. Speech and conversation with one another generate knowledge negotiated and subjected to endless talk. However, building an online learning community is neither automatic nor simple to achieve.

Can a community of learners coexist?

As an extension of your course topics, you might like to create a blog outside the course platform, where learners will post articles, reflections, diary entries, images, links to websites, audio, or video clips, etc. A community of learners can co-exist and co-develop in several social means concurrently.

What is the Community of Inquiry framework?

The Community of Inquiry (CoI) theoretical framework (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2001) is perhaps the best-known and most researched approach to designing learning experiences for the online environment.

What is social presence?

Social presence is defined as students engaging with a learning community where trust has been sufficiently established for students to feel comfortable with risk-taking, and where relationships are built through personal connection with each other and the content.

1. Clearly define and communicate your shared values

Why is it that a sense of community can be tough to create online? In education, Quarles said, we’re used to relying on physical location to create that sense of place that allows community to bloom.

2. Create space for small, informal interactions

When distance education first began to emerge, discussions on how to foster community often centered on tips for how faculty should engineer more student interactions – like incorporating discussion boards, for example, or promising frequent feedback on assignments.

3. Leverage technological tools with a purpose-first approach

How exactly do we create those spaces and opportunities for interactions? That’s where technology comes in. With a purpose-first, tool-second approach, technology can be a significant asset toward accomplishing goals that are grounded in shared values.

4. Invest in building communities that last beyond the classroom

Of course, if you really want your programs to thrive, it takes an investment – of time, energy, and yes, money. “We’re seeking to really fully embed and immerse our online communities in what it means to be a part of the Curry community, so it’s not an add-on – rather, it’s that they belong here.”

5. Bring everyone into the process – then listen to their feedback

In a field that is changing so quickly, how do you keep up? In many ways, that’s what people like Quarles are here for. “I think of my role at Curry as a hub,” she said.

What is the most important aspect of virtual classroom?

Responsibility can be the toughest and most important aspect of a virtual classroom to build. Students have to juggle a lot when they’re working from home, and you can help them develop some basic time management and coping skills. The community agreements play a part, as students often set up an agreement or two related to timeliness and being fully present.

Is it possible to push out a curriculum strategy without attending to culture?

It is really tempting to push out a curriculum strategy without attending to culture in any school setting, but including your cultural strategy in your virtual curriculum plan is the key to creating a true learning community.

Do students have siblings?

Most students have siblings who are also distance learning. Many also have siblings, or nieces or nephews, who are babies or toddlers. Sometimes they pop up, and I pause and ask my student who the person is, and I say hi to them. Students always laugh or smile in these moments.

Should teachers offer different modalities to help students learn?

Teachers should offer different modalities to help students learn, as each individual absorbs information differently. Melanie Gottdenger pointed me towards universal design for learning, UDL. It’s hard to plan a class minute by minute, she explains, especially in a diverse classroom.