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The Temporal Dimension of Building Community Online: Is Time on Your Side?

The Temporal Dimension of Building Community Online: Is Time on Your Side?. Jane Livingston Vassar College. Robert Heckman Syracuse University. Agenda. Community=Good So what is the problem? Community building and review of scholarship Role of the instructor Lifecycle of a single course

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The Temporal Dimension of Building Community Online: Is Time on Your Side?

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  1. The Temporal Dimension of Building Community Online: Is Time on Your Side? Jane Livingston Vassar College Robert Heckman Syracuse University

  2. Agenda Community=Good So what is the problem? Community building and review of scholarship Role of the instructor Lifecycle of a single course What can you do and when? Caveats

  3. A rose by any other name…Schools of Online Community Building • Community of Inquiry • Community of Practice • Action-based Learning • Problem-based Learning • Virtual Community • Learning Communities

  4. Why is Community Good? • Community interaction creates tension and discourse • Discourse leads to knowledge construction

  5. Pitfalls and Impediments • Social interaction is most easily accomplished face to face (F2F) • Community formation depends on individuals • Group Belonging/Identity creation can be encouraged, but ultimately is VOLUNTARY

  6. Community ingredients • Shared purpose--Sense of community identity • Social framework for interaction • identity formation for individuals • Time to develop

  7. Educational Environments and Community Building • Three Tiers • Face to Face • Blended • Purely distance/online Community is necessary but develops more “naturally” Community development must be encouraged and managed by the instructor

  8. Continuum of Mediation Models for Learning Instructor effort required to build community Blended Distance F2F Dependence on technology to sustain community

  9. Community formation challenges • In a traditional Face to Face environment, community is assumed and follows an understood pattern. • In a Blended environment, getting students to use the online component is complicated. Students think “showing up” is enough. • In Distance course, building community online is an imperative… non-negotiable. Therefore, students engage willingly.

  10. So what is the problem? • Time.

  11. Voluntary or Moderated? • Moderated/Facilitated • Knowledge Management • Formal educational courses and programs • Educationally-driven Communities of Inquiry • Voluntary • Political or social blogging • Professional or Organizational Learning Communities • Disciplinary COPs

  12. Phases in Active Construction of Knowledge Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Share & Compare Information Finding dissonance or points of inconsistency Negotiation of Meaning: Finding commonality or overlap of conflicting concepts Test, modify, synthesize the tentative construction Summarizing or articulating a conclusion But it depends on interaction with others: Community A good student in a good course will experience these phases … (Kanuka & Anderson, 1998)

  13. Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000)

  14. Etienne Wenger’s Model Time of a single course

  15. Gilly Salmon’s 5 Step Model

  16. Ruth Brown on 3 Levels of Community • Online Acquaintanceship • Community Conferment • Camaraderie

  17. Ruth Brown on Time • Time is an “intervening condition.” • Time to devote to class • Time required to master technology • Camaraderie based on long-term relationships • Time Triangles = Amount of time required to get up to speed Community-building Course Content Teaching Method Technology Veteran Student New Student

  18. What about a program? • Community development is a long-term commitment. • Building student communities over two, three or four courses will yield more consistent results • Then Wenger’s model maps more nicely to education…

  19. Etienne Wenger’s Model Time of a single course Semester 2 Semester 3 Semester 4 Graduate

  20. What about the Course lifecycle? • 10-14 weeks • (at least)Two weeks of ramp up --technology, getting to know each other, teaching methodology, etc.) • What about the range of technological and social readiness? • How do you manage expectations?

  21. Community Course Lifecycle

  22. Instructor effort for Community Development during a course

  23. Preparing before the class begins • Before course begins: • Prepare students to join community • Ask each to write a bio/descriptive statement, post it and read everyone else’s • Consider using one of Gilly Salmon’s e-tivities

  24. Essential ingredients • First two weeks • Of a course are critical • You must: • Create Opportunity • Encourage • Integrate

  25. Goals for the instructor • Create illusion of desire--Make the students want to participate. • Investigate, research, discover their interests: Find what excites them and then leverage it as a e-tivity tool • Thank everyone for participating. Publicly and privately--both matter.

  26. Role of the Instructor(Communal Architect1) • Building Community is like an “Arranged Marriage.” Learners are “pushed, not pulled”2 into community relationship. • Instructor participation can be primarily as a contributor or as mediator or somewhere in between. 1 Woods and Ebersole, 2003. 2 Conrad, 2002.

  27. References • Anderson, T. and Kanuka, H. (1998) Online Social Interchange, Discord and Knowledge Construction. Journal of Distance Education, 13(1). • Brown, Ruth E. (2001) The Process of Community Building in Distance Learning Classes. JALN Vol.5(2). • Conrad, Dianne. (2002) Inhibition Integrity and Etiquette among online learners: the art of Niceness. Journal of Distance Education, 23(2). • Conrad, Dianne. (2002) Deep in the Hearts of Learners: Insights into the Nature of Online Community. Journal of Distance Education, 17(1). • Garber, Debbie. (2004) Growing Virtual Communities. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. August 2004. • Garrison, D.R and W. Archer. (2000) A Transactional Perspective on Teaching and Learning: A Framework for adults and higher education. Amsterdam: Pergamon. • Haythornthwaite, Caroline, Michelle M. Kazmer, Jennifer Robbins and Susan Shoemaker. (2000) Community Development among Distance Learners: Temporal and Technological Dimensions. JCMC 6(1). • Salmon, G. (2000). E-moderating: The key to teaching and learning online. London: Kogan Page. • Wenger, Etienne. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning Meaning and Identity New York: Cambridge University Press. • Woods, Robert; Ebersole, Samuel. (2003). Becoming a "communal architect" in the online classroom - integrating cognitive and affective learning for maximum effect in web-based learning. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 6(1).

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