In their paper Imel and Stein wrote, “Adult learning in the United States has a decidedly individualistic rather than a communal nature” (117). This statement stood out to me because it is so true and also because it is the reason community learning is often underused in our classrooms. So many students dread the idea of working in a group or having to rely on a community of students to complete an assignment. Few students realize the potential community learning offers and don’t like having to rely on others for a grade. But the term “social capital” reflects the idea that social networking and groups can be a great resource for learning and growing. Students can learn from each other as well as from the instructor. Recent trends in education have seen this and have been advocating more community learning in the classroom. Last fall I attended an On Course workshop that offered instructors many ideas about using different group and community activities to promote a different kind of learning as an alternative to lecturing.
For online classes, the need for community is even more important as students are physically isolated from fellow students and the class instructor. In “Building Sense of Community at a Distance,” Rovai writes that a classroom community needs four dimensions: cohesion or spirit among the classroom community, trust, interaction, and learning. In my own online classroom experience, these dimensions can occur in a well-structured online course, even without putting students in smaller groups. I actually think a learning community is easier to create for students in an online class compared to a face-to-face class.
In an online class, cohesion can be created at the beginning of the course when students introduce themselves and they understand the similarities between each other and/or their ultimate goals. In my experience, students are more willing to share information about themselves in the online environment where they don’t have to stand up and “speak” in front of the whole class. Discussion rooms like the “virtual café” also help to create this sense of community among those who seek it. Trust is probably the hardest dimension to create among students, especially in smaller groups where a grade depends on the whole team contributing. But as in this class, when an instructor gives both an individual grade and a group grade, trust is more easily given. I also think respect and giving students classroom guidelines for class interaction will help create a stronger trust among students. If students respond to each other with respect and quality feedback, a better trust can be formed. For the online class, interaction is more easily achieved than in the face-to-face classroom because students must post their thoughts in an online class for others to read and give feedback to. There is no hiding in an online class. Most instructors require students to respond to other students’ postings, so interaction is automatically a part of online learning. If I were to teach an online class, I would also require students respond to other students who haven’t had feedback yet, so everyone would have the chance for a classroom “conversation.” Lastly, I think learning takes place among these three dimensions as well as in the course material the students may be reading. To me, learning is the product of all the other dimensions. And because online students can go back and reread material, there is a greater sense of understanding and learning taking place among this cohesion, trust and interaction.
