Community Building in Online Courses

 Community building is an important aspect of online courses. Research has shown that students who are engaged with their online courses are more likely to successfully complete them. Having just finished writing a literature review on the use of asynchronous discussion forums for a course that I am taking, I feel like somewhat of a subject matter expert in this area. Discussion forums aren't the only way to create community, but they are certainly one of the most widely used. Creating engaging and interactive discussion forums that add to the learning of the student is a very challenging task. Thought must be put into the questions that are being asked - problem solving or debate type questions tend to engage the student more than questions that require a simple, straightforward answer. Discussions are also more successful if they are graded and if the instructor is involved with the discussion, steering it and giving feedback. Clear explanations of expectations or examples of what a quality post looks like, as well as clear, concise rubrics will also tend to generate higher quality participation and interaction from the students. Allowing the students to create audio posts can be a possible alternative to text based forums and has shown some degree of success. Other areas where interaction can take place in online courses is through group projects, synchronous meetings and correspondence with the instructor and/or fellow students, but discussion forums are by far the most consistently used. The fact that most discussion forums don't generate a sense of community or contribute to learning outcomes for the student is a problem that needs to be addressed in a lot of online courses.

I have tried to use traditional discussion forums in my online courses in the past with very little success. There is minimal interaction between the students. The responses to the posts are either all directly related to the primary post, or to the response made directly before. An example of a typically discussion forum from one of my online courses is shown below. The prompt for this post was

Photo editing dates back to the 1860s. Manipulating photos can be done to misrepresent products, sensationalize something in the press, or cause somebody embarassment. There hae been several controversial photos that have been edited and placed in magazines or newpapers, such as a 1982 National Geographic cover photo of the pyramids in Egypt and a 2008 picture of vice residential candidate Sarah Palin. What do you think about photo manipulation? Are there times when it is ok? Times when it is not ok? Find an example of photo manipulation and address it specifically in your post. If possible include the image(s) or a link to the images in your primary post. As always, minimum or 300, cite your source(s), primary posts are due by Thursday, 3 responses by Sunday.

Even when the students find the topic interesting, posts tend to be rather dry and boring. In an effort to get the students to put more thought into responses, I changed from forum discussion to blog posts. The blog environment gave the students more creative control over their content and generated much more interesting and thoughtful responses, but it took away the interactivity. 

In my online explorations this semester, I discovered a tool called padlet that allows for creativity and interactivity. I have redesigned this forum for the students to do on padlet. I will break the students into groups of 4-5 students so that the number of responses doesn't get overwhelming. I am hoping that the non-linear format and creative elements will get the students more excited about participating in the forum. A screen capture of the redesigned forum is below, or if you can go directly to the padlet to see how it works.

I am very excited about this new tool and how it will work in my classes next semester. I will be looking for other ways for the students to collaborate as well. We will most likely be using Google drive to collaborate on some work and I plan to have a few mandatory synchronous meetings. I am optimistic that I will be able to generate more of a sense of community in my online class using the technology tools available to me.