EdTech 523: Community Building in the Online Course

Discussion Prompt:

Chapter three of Palloff and Pratt in this weeks assigned reading talks about the many different aspects of the human side of online learning that can have an impact on building an online community. This human side of online learning can create challenges and obstacles for the participants of an online course. Chapter 3 identified the following as certain issues that can arise when developing community building in an online course.

• The need for human contact 
• Connectedness and coalescence 
• Shared responsibility, rules and norms 
• Roles and participation 
• Shadow issues 
• Ritual as the psychological expression of community 
• Spiritual issues 
• Culture and language 
• Vulnerability, ethics, and privacy 

For this week's discussion, answer the following prompts.

1. Select two of these identified issues and discuss the challenges that can occur. 
2. How can you as the facilitator of an online course help participants overcome these challenges?


My contribution: Shared responsibilities, rules, and norms helps build an online community that it committed to working together with the guidance of jointly established processes and policies. It's important for a community to avoid making too many "rules", which could lead to frustration, power-struggles, or rebellion. Instead, boundaries, expectations, and norms can be discussed to the point of compromise and then explicitly stated so that everyone is on the same page. A leader can guide participants to agree on some standard norms such as openness, honesty, and safety. It may require a consensus-building exercise to determine the schedule or levels of discussion. As a facilitator of a course, we could plan for our initial meeting to involve this kind of decision-making and "verbal" contract-signing. That way everyone knows and has somewhat of a say in the who, what, where, why, and when. This will make the community more productive and purposeful. It will also make everything run with "clarity" and efficiency.

Roles in an online classroom may not be as clear as they would be in a live setting because people do not really "know" each other as well. By establishing good presence, an instructor can make her roles more clear (facilitator, evaluator, motivator, etc.), however it is important that she goes out of her way to let students know that her roles are farther reaching than in a traditional, teacher-centered classroom. Encouraging team-work and collaboration is a good way to ensure that everyone feels they have a role to play in the online community. These roles should emerge naturally, and should (hopefully) serve the greater good of the community. Giving students voice and choice helps natural talents and personality traits shine through. Relinquishing control over discussions, some assignment tasks, etc. is another way of increasing participation naturally.

Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Reply to a peer: Marta, I'm so glad you shared that article in your post and brought this interesting angle to the discussion. It's one thing that we all participate in partner/group work and discussion boards as a group of post-graduate professionals. On the whole we have a sensitivity to others' feelings, busy schedules, concepts of fairness, spirits of collaboration or at least compromise, etc. This is a skill we've developed throughout our entire school, work, and family lives. This is a whole new ballgame for many K12 students, however, especially if they are not as familiar with the online environment. Knowing how to speak up, keep teammates on track, consider all sides and opinions, etc. while working on group projects or participating in discussions is a skill that needs plenty of opportunity for rehearsal. No one should be "defaulted" into the "secretary effect". (That article struck so many chords! I shared it with many colleagues, thanks again!)

I agree with you that shifting roles throughout the course will help students develop these different collaborative skills. How to do that is a little tricky, especially since we don't want our students to participate inauthentic to their learning style. It's a balance between encouraging students to follow their interests, personalities, and innate motivations and convincing them to step outside themselves and experience a different "role" in the learning process, even if it doesn't feel comfortable right away.

Perhaps having designated "duties" for projects or discussions that need to rotate throughout the course would help ensure that students get to try on new hats here and there. (For example, idea "riffer", summarizer, researcher, scheduler, etc.) The instructor should also schedule opportunities for students to share honest reflection on their feelings about their role and place in the online community (this could be privately with the instructor, or could be a heavily moderated whole-group discussion). It's when students shut down and treat their roles as "givens" or, worse, as chores, that group learning becomes disengaging.