Building community in online course

Assignment 3: Write one paragraph in which you explain how you will design your course to build community. Write a second paragraph about how the way you will facilitate learning will help build community. Relate each to the kind of student and content you will be working with

Response:

In order to build effective community, students first need to become comfortable with responding to their classmates and instructor. I’ll give personal response to the participants’ introduction thread during the first week of my course- ABC’s of Chemistry, and help students to develop candlepower within the context of an online class. In the beginning of the course, I’ll clearly mention that the course will encourage thoughtful personal postings within the forum, and discourage “me too, I agree” contributions. I’ll include the group work and peer review to discuss topics such as periodic table and using online tools like unit converter. One way to involve students in discussion is to lead questions that encourage participants to invest in concerns held by other learners, and to share ideas and possible solutions. I think this will be helpful in writing equations and solve thermodynamic problems because these two areas are usually considered to be difficult for the students those are new to chemistry. One/two students will be assigned the role of ‘ice-breaker’ each week. They will initiate the discussion in DB on the given topic. For example, ice-breakers can initiate the discussion on how they performed the experiments in the virtual lab, due in that particular week. They can use storytelling to describe their experience also.  I’ll include role play in organic chemistry in which, students will perform the role of organic and inorganic compounds, and discuss the characteristics of each compound they are playing role of.

Students from high school are most likely to take up this course, so this course might be one of their first online asynchronous learning. The way an instructor facilitates learning helps to build community. According to Moore (2007) initial in‐person contact and a sustained group better enabled students to develop a learning community in an online environment and enable instructor to make interpersonal connection with students. When learners are a part of a group work, a common sense of responsibility exists among participants towards the assigned task and/or in group discussion. This common sense of responsibility acts as a motivational force to work as a community. Ice breakers will promote thoughtful interaction and introduce their classmates to a new procedure or concept. The ice-breakers will use candle power to tell stories about what they learnt through their experiments, helping the ones who have never done any chemistry experiment. Such intellectual discourse can effectively give students the opportunity to show that they have truly learned a concept by sharing with others their ideas. Assigning participants to moderate online discussions, engage in debates, summarize results and reflect on their postings promote interaction too. The storytelling and role play will encourage more student participation and community building, helping especially, those who learn through ‘interpersonal’ learning styles (Gardner, 1995).

References:

1. Jodi, S. (2012, May). [Online forum comment].

2. Moore, J. (2007) Web institutes. Retrieved November 4, 2008, from Sloan Consortium Web site: http://sloanconsortium.org/node/423

3. Gardner, H. (1995). How Are Kids Smart: Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom—Administrators' Version. ISBN 1-887943-03-X