Building a Learning Community
Palloff and Pratt recommend seven basic steps for building a successful
learning community. These include:
clearly defining the purpose of the community,
creating a distinctive gathering place for the group,
promoting effective leadership from within,
defining norms and a clear code of conduct,
allowing for a range of member roles,
allowing for and facilitating of subgroups, and
allowing members to resolve their own disputes.
The authors caution that it is possible to develop a community that has
strong social connections between the students, but where very little
learning actually takes place. Thus, it is important that the instructor
be actively engaged in the process and encourages students who stray from
the learning goals of the course. Specifically, the authors recommend:
(1) engaging students with subject matter, (2) accounting for attendance
and participation, (3) working with students who do not participate, (4)
understanding the signs of when a student is in trouble, and (5) building
online communities that accommodate personal interaction.
Indicators of a Successful Learning Community
You can tell if the learning community is working when you see:
active interaction,
sharing of resources among students,
collaborative learning evidenced by comments directed primarily student
to student rather than student to instructor,
socially constructed meaning evidenced by agreement or questioning,
with the intent to achieve agreement on issues of meaning, and
expressions of support and encouragement exchanged between students,
as well as willingness to critically evaluate the work of others.
Finally, they suggest that the keys to successful learning communities
are honesty, responsiveness, relevance, respect, openness, and empowerment.
Palloff, R.M. & Pratt, K. (1999). Building Learning Communities
in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass Publishers.
