There is always a small group of people who are used to get everything done well alone. Undoubtedly, working individually may have high efficiency and flexibility, but most of us prefer or feel more comfortable with a community. From the human perspective, we are social animals, we tend to group up with other people. Therefore, a community is a significant factor is an online course, since online courses can hardly make friends or it is much more difficult than face-to-face lectures.

The author claims that ”community allows us to be around others who hold a common set of ideals and ideas and who can validate our own experiences and beliefs” (Major, 2015). In traditional lectures, both teachers and students like studying as a group which greatly enhances the conduction of lectures. Because there is interaction within the groups, and every student is able to participate in the instructor’s direction. Moreover, the instructor is acting more like guidance so that students can expand their creative thoughts. It could be meaningful if gathering all groups into a community or forum in each industry. Every controversial issue may be discussed and solved in a well-known and authorized community. If applying community in online courses, and it will be a creative learning method.

Todd Conaway mentions a few points to form a better community in an online course. First of all, developing a sense of connection between instructors and students (Major, 2015). The purpose of communities is cultivating a higher engagement. A community does not have to be too formal, students may discuss what they are interested in, like music, sports, and arts. Community is not only designed for academic purpose but expanding student’s horizon is also another goal of forming a community. Besides, it is possible to have a multicultural background in online courses and students may contribute their ideas combining with personal experience. Thus, students not only learn other’s way of thinking but also experiences in diverse cultures. 

Nowadays, technologies can help communicate in online lectures even further because students can share their ideas visually and verbally via various applications. During discussing, posting a link to a video or music in a community is really helpful to people who learn more efficient with sounds and graphs. Increasing utilization of technology will be the trend in the future, but overusing the digits may reduce face-to-face communication which is the result of heavily depending on technologies. Just imagine online learning is the major distributing method and most of the lectures can be done online. It could be little students studying in the campuses of top 10 universities which may be ridiculous.

Meanwhile, instructors may assign group works which require a higher degree of interaction and students can learn in an effective way. However, moral hazard may be involved, there are always some people do not want to contribute, but wait until other groupmates get the work done for them. It is not difficult to prevent this free-rider problem, as long as students report that to instructors. But what if the students pay someone else to complete the assignment for them? There is a demand-supply relationship between schoolwork and ghost-writer. If instructors want to verify if students’ works are plagiarised, they may check it by using online detect tools. It will evolve the case to another problem which the companies may sell the uploaded document. Hence, it is a complicated issue.

Another strategy to set up a good community is setting rules to make the community more organized in distributing opinions and atmosphere of discussion. Since a community is encouraged to post and comment on other’s idea, it is critical not to offend others and have personal attacks. Hence, instructors should monitor the discussion in the community is interacting in a positive manner to protect introverted students. The community also has to be sustainably developed. Instructors have to figure out a way to manage the community properly even in the long run, they should find out making what kind of changes will benefit the community.

A community is an essential part of online learning, but it could be a double-edged sword. Instructors should ensure the communication in the community is in an academic mode. If a community does not manage properly, it will also be a tool against each other which is not the goal of a community. To make sure the participation of every student and prevent personal attack from happening are the critical problems.

 

Reference:

Major, C. H. (2015). “Teaching online: A guide to theory, research, and practice”.

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Community is essential for online learning