Community Building in the Online Classroom

This book offers theories, principles, and strategies for developing the online classroom as a deep and full learning community that students feel is truly about, by, and for them. To be immediately useful, it offers practical ideas for helping students to actively contribute to shaping classroom affairs toward relevance and meaning. However, in order to elevate the discussion beyond the "primer" level, the book anchors those ideas in social and educational principles and theories. As social learning theories posit, deep and full learning occurs when our full cognitive, emotional, and social selves are engaged. This book mitigates the challenges to such engagement in the virtual classroom, arguing that a strong sense of community ownership will enhance students' ability to successfully master content. Although not all strategies are group based, the use of groups both large and small is a primary way of helping online students to become active on their own behalf in building a learning community that meets their needs. Strategies outlined here focus primarily on promoting shared authority, visibility, and voice and on encouraging student disclosure of needs and peer connection.