Building Community in an Online Course

Blog Post: Building Community - Throughout this course you have been reading and studying about the importance of building a sense of community within the online learning environment. Reflect and describe 3-5 specific strategies that you will employ to build a sense of community with your online classes. Post a comment to the blogs of at least two of your classmates. You might want to review the readings on p. 78 in your textbook.

Taking time to have fun and share with students; share about family, pets, hobbies.  Students see you as real person they can connect with!

When building a community in your online classroom, I feel this is very important.  Before any assignments take place, it is important for the teacher to introduce herself by making herself a “human”.  Students often have a preconceived notion that teachers are there to give them a lot work and bad grades.  As a teacher, it is your job to dispel that notion. The students would relate to the teacher in an interactive and positive way if they know from the beginning that the teacher is there for them.  I would start my class off with an icebreaker of some sort.  I would think of a creative way for me to introduce myself and allow the students to introduce him- or herself the same way.  After proper introductions, the learning can then take place.

Developing a trusting relationship with students via monthly call, e-mails, etc.

Developing a trusting relationship with students is another way I would build a sense of community.  I would probably use a monthly phone call.  The students are already taking an online class so an email, to me, is just something else for them to read.  Making a phone call is a different mean of communication.  This will let the student know that I am there for them and care about their learning. 

­­Finding out what motivates each student.

The motivation of a student determines how much interest the student has in your classroom.  Currently, in my face-to-face classroom I do a Multiple Intelligence test in the beginning of the year.  I build a lot of my lessons around these Intelligences.  This is what keeps my students engaged throughout the year.  In my online class, I would like to provide this sort of survey.  I would then plan my lessons around the results.  Some of my lessons could include music, nature, sports, reading, travelling, etc. depending on the results.

Providing opportunities for students to interact with each other (Elluminate, whiteboards, group activities, chats, etc.)

Students love to have people they can connect with when studying a program.  They like to see that there are other people out their sharing their experiences and frustrations with their classes.  Speaking from experience, during undergrad it was a good resource for me to contact my classmates about an assignment and to get their advice.  Now that I have graduated, I still contact some of the friends I made for their advice on proofreading my graduate work.  It never hurts for someone else to take a look at your work.  I would assign a lesson around the students getting to know each other but not anything stressful.

Finding out how other instructors “track” their students; share best practices!

As a teacher, you can’t do everything alone.  It is good to share best practices.  A practice that another teacher is doing might work better for you or something you are doing might benefit another teacher.  Teaching is definitely a collaborative profession.