Building a Sense of Community in the Virtual Classroom

Chapter three of James Lang’s On Course and Jesse Stommel’s “How to Build an Ethical Online Course,” explore ways how to build a sense of community in a the virtual classroom. Lang cites an example from Lucia Knoles, in which Knoles suggests that discussion boards and blog posts should be a requirement in the virtual learning environment to build a sense of community. On the other hand, Jesse Stommel suggests that assigning points to discussion boards and blog posts compromises a sense of community in the virtual classroom. While Knoles refers to establishing requirements and Stommel refers to point distribution, I see a connection between the uses of point distribution as an assessment to the “required” discussion board or blog post.

For instance, when I have made discussion board participation a requirement, I was disappointed in the types of responses that students were submitting. Knoles believes, however, that when students post on an optional basis they are not engaged in the assignment due to outside responsibilities. Seemingly, Knoles’ observation could also serve as the reason that students are not engaged in posts when the post is a requirement. In this case, I find that students post to “earn points” to "get the job done" rather than really thinking about what and why they are posting. On the other hand, when the discussion board post is optional, I am faced with the issue of not getting full participation from students.

The last time I used discussion board posts in a virtual classroom, I used both the optional and requirement approaches. The weekly posts were optional and I assigned three required posts over the course of the semester. The weekly posts were designed for students to post questions about the learning materials. Here, I wanted to give my students the option to create the conversation. Out of 18 students, I found that about six students would respond to the weekly discussion board posts with questions. They posted questions about the course material and they also posted questions about how to navigate the course site. At the same time, I found that some of the students that were not responding were still viewing the posts. Not making these posts a requirement encouraged an open discussion without the pressures students sometimes feel in trying to say the "right thing." Additionally, I did not have to suffer through disinterested regurgitations of the material, while taking on the tedious task of assigning points to these empty student summaries.

The three required discussion board posts were directly connected to the papers my students were writing. My intention here was to create a virtual peer-review workshop so students could receive feedback on their papers. In the required discussion boards, about 13 students regularly participated and offered constructive feedback on each other’s papers.

Reflecting on my experience along with this week’s readings lead me to pose the following questions:

Is less than 100% participation in online discussion boards and blog posts so terrible? What is the particular purpose of posting? Is posting supposed to recreate the in-class discussion? If so, does every student always talk in class? Can students be engaged by reading other students’ posts without the pressures of responding?

Lang’s discussion of Knoles along with Stommel’s observations are relevant in regards to these questions related to building a sense of community in the virtual classroom. I cannot say that one idea is more effective than the other; rather I think that when considering a virtual community of learners, like any class, the educator has to consider his or her audience. Along with the consideration of audience, I think it becomes even more important in the virtual classroom for the instructor to develop a clear purpose on how the use of various virtual elements creates a safe and productive virtual learning community.