Building Community when Remote
Strategies for building an online community of learning when students are fully or partially remote
If you are teaching a class that is fully, or partially, remote, creating a sense of connectedness and community helps keep the students engaged with the course and each other.
Online learners who interact with instructors and classmates remotely through an online platform rely on a sense of connection with the class online learning community in order to stay engaged and learn effectively (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 1999). Because interactions in fully online classes are asynchronous and largely text-based, they tend to be less casual and lack essential non-verbal cues that are essential to building connection such as facial expressions and tone of voice . When online students have opportunities for informal interactions through the online platform, they get a stronger sense that other people are present in the course, and this in turn creates social connections that can create a strong community of inquiry.
Basic steps instructors can take to build community in online classes
- Demonstrate an active presence in the online environment.
- Promote informal, autonomous student-to-student interactions.
- Recognize personal experiences & perspectives.
- Build peer support and feedback into coursework.
- Design a collective community learning objective for the course.