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Creating a Culture of Community in Online Courses
Beth Perry, Athabasca University, Canada
Co-Author: Margareth Edward, Athabasca University, Canada
Summary
Technology can enhance online learning. Using qualitative research we explored the effect of selected interactive teaching technologies such as photovoice, conceptual quilting, and online point-counterpoint debates on the facilitation of a culture of community in online courses. This paper describes how the interactive teaching strategies helped to transform the virtual classroom into a learning community that took on elements of a shared culture. A shared culture is defined as an environment in which participants experience an alignment of purpose and a sense of cohesion. In such an educational environment students and teachers engage in an academic dialogue leading to a mutual learning experience. The interactive teaching technologies assisted in achieving a culture of community by enhancing levels of social interaction. This paper, based on good practices supported by research findings, has many practical implications. Educators who design and teach courses online will discover many ideas they can use to enhance the effectiveness of their courses. The teaching technologies described can be applied to courses in various subject areas. The concept of culture of community has the potential to assist both in informing online course design and in helping online educatorslearn strategies that facilitate the experience of shared classroom community.
Introduction
Creative teaching technologiescan enhance online teaching and learning. We explored the effect of selected teaching technologies: photovoice, conceptual quilting, and point-counterpoint debate on an online learning community. This paper describes how these teaching technologies helped the online class acquire elements of a shared culture that we called “a culture of community.”
We begin with a discussion of background literature and the research upon which this paper is based. Research findings inform the discussion which includes practical implications for online course designers and teachers. Emphasis is on the concept of the culture of community. The conclusion identifies furtherresearch questions.
Background Literature
Online education
Online educational is increasingexponentially (Hodge, Bosse, Faulconer, & Fewell, 2006). The Internet has changed the social and pedagogical perspective of online learning (Dabbagh, 2004). Shea identified three foundational changes influencing online education; a philosophical shift from objectivism towards constructivism; a theoretical shift from behaviorism towards socio-cognitive views of education; and a pedagogical shift from direct instruction to collaborative learning (2006). New online teaching strategies should be in-line with these changes. Literaturesupports the importance of interaction, social presence, and community in online education (Shu-Fang & Aust, 2008; Garrison, 2006; Rovai, & Wighting, 2005; Lee, Carter-Wells, Glaeser, Ivers, & Street, 2006).
Interactive teaching technologies
Photovoice. Wang and Burris (1997) developed photovoice as a participatory-action research methodology. Perry (2006) transformed this research methodology into an interactive online teaching technology, which builds on the theoretical understandings established in the education literature on critical consciousness and feminist theory (Wang & Burris, 1997).
The photovoice teaching technology involves the online instructor posting a digital image for the class at the outset of each unit in the course. Each image is accompanied by a reflective question posed by the instructor. Students are encouraged to view the photograph and discuss the question in a designated forum. Participation in the activity is none-graded, optional, and no pre-reading is required.
Conceptual quilting. The online strategy of conceptual quilting was developed by the authors and has been used in online graduate courses primarily as a course summary activity. In conceptual quilting students construct a virtual quilt comprised of ideas, metaphors, and theories from the course that they found most personally meaningful; a pictorial representation of their own experiences with course materials, classmates, and the instructor. The quilts are in medium that can be shared electronically with the class. Students usevarious drawing software to produce their quilts. Todevelop a conceptual quilt learners must interact with the course materials and with themselves.
Students post their quilts to an asynchronous online discussion forum. Classmates view one another’s quilts and then comment or question the designers. This discussion often results in a resurgence of dialogue around a course theme that was depicted in a quilt. This activity is none-graded and optional; however, participation is almost 100%.
Online point-counterpoint debates. The point-counterpoint debates are a teaching strategy developed to facilitate both interaction between course participants, and the learning of course content in a creative way. Students are given a resolution and invited to take one side of the topic (the point or the counterpoint). Learners are encouraged to choose the position that opposes their actual beliefs. Over the period of a week students argue their perspective in an asynchronous debate specific online forum. Affirmative and negative arguments and rebuttals are presented in sequence. At the end of the week the instructor announces a “victor.”
Research Design
Thirty-one graduate students taking an online course were surveyed at the end of the course to determine their experiences with these three teaching technologies. In keeping with descriptive qualitative data analysis, data were read and reread by research team members and resulting themes identified. Central phrases are reported verbatim.
Findings. The overarching theme we labeled “creating a culture of community.” The three interactive teaching activities of photovoice, conceptual-quilting, and point-counterpoint debates all helped to create an atmosphere in the online classroom that students reported included aspects on the culture of community. A culture of community includes a sense of shared purpose and shared values, knowing of self and others, and meaningful interaction.
A Sense of Shared Purpose and Values
Participants commented that the activities helped them to focus on the purpose of the course. Photovoice was particularly popular; helping students focus on course objectives. Study respondents commented, “I enjoyed the photovoice exercise because it got me thinking about what we would cover in this course.” Another said, “In some courses we don’t really get going right away – we spend a lot of time in introductions. In this course I had to dive right into that photovoice activity. It was not too threatening; it got the momentum going.”
Students reported that they found the debating activity helped them to “get to know themselves and the others in their class,” because interactions are at “a deep and meaningful level.” In this way it is an effective strategy for the development of relationships that seem be foundational for future meaningful interactions and establishment of a sense of shared purpose.
Students said that the point-counterpoint debate helped them to share their values with classmates. From this start they were able to determine for themselves what they actually believed about certain issues and they had an opportunity to share this. They commented, “The debate made me take a stand and share that publically.” One said, “I liked the debate because it brought some of the fuzzy and delicate issues about topics out in the open right away. Sometimes in online classes I really we don’t get to these aspects of certain topics until late in the course, if at all.” Another said, “I was a little intimidated by the debate at first. I thought ‘what if I pick the wrong viewpoint’ but then I remembered we could pick what we didn’t believe. This made it easier – less threatening.” Finally, one student said, “The debate was good because it forced me to really think about some issues. Initially, I didn’t even know what I thought. Now I do!”
Knowing of Self and Others
The interactive teaching activities seemed to facilitate students getting to know themselves and their classmates. Participants reported that the photovoice exercise caused them to learn about themselves as they were asked to reveal what they saw in the image. One said, “Photovoice was very personal. I learned that I often see things differently than others.” Another thought, “The photovoice was great because it was all about me. I didn’t have to look for references or write about what other people thought. I just had to write about what I saw in the photo.” Another commented, “I loved the photovoice. I learned that we are all different, we all see something different in the photo. An image can be positive for me and negative for you. I learned a lot about myself by what I saw in the photos.”
The conceptual quilting was also evaluated by the students as effective for developing self-knowledge, a precursor to relationships. Quilting wasa very personal exercise asking students to consider what metaphors, theories, insights etc. from the course meant the most to their learning. One student said, “The quilt-making assignment caused me to really reflect on what I had taken from the course.” Another wrote, “Conceptual quilting was helpful to reviewing the key elements of the course for me.”
Others learners noted how the interactive teaching strategies helped to facilitate relationships between the students in the course. Many were very positive about photovoice in this regard. One said, “Photovoice helped us to talk to each other. We really got to know each other by what we each saw in the same photo.” Another response read, “Photovoice really got us involved with each other. We all did it and we all did it before any of the other activities. Sometimes I logged on many times everyday just to see what had been said about the photo. I think I participated more in the class [than any others I have been in] because I got really involved with others through the photos.”
The debates were also effective for building relationships. Responses included, “The debates were great. We had to interact because we were defending our point of view. I had a lot of side conversations after the debate with people I had been debating with.” Another commented, “I really like learning activities that involve interaction with others. It makes learning a lot less lonely. Sometimes if there isn’t a specific activity that invites me to interact it just doesn’t happen. Activities like debates and photovoice set us up to get to know each other.”
Meaningful Interaction
The third theme relates to the quality of the interactions between learners that was facilitated by the activities. While comments indicated photovoice, conceptual quilting and the debates increased the quantity of interactions, there is also evidence that these strategies had a positive effect on quality of interactions. One wrote, “I really got to know my classmates. I mean really know them in a way that made working together comfortable. I usually hate group presentations but this time I loved it. I think it was because through all those photovoices I got to know people – who they really were. It made a big difference to how we all interacted.” Another wrote, “People would always reveal something about themselves when they wrote about the image. They might say, ‘I see in this photo a warm summer evening like the ones I shared with my Grandma in PEI,’ or ‘this picture reminds me of the time I was let go from my job….’ These insights into the others in the class were quite different from the usual details people share about themselves.”
The debates were also seen by the students to facilitate quality interactions. Students commented the debates, “opened doors to talking about real issues,” “caused me to get to know others in a deeper way,” and “challenged us to get to know ourselves and others.” One wrote, “For me the debates really helped me know people’s values. If you are going to debate a point of view successfully you have to know yourself and be able to share your position convincingly.”
The conceptual quilting exercise also received positive acknowledgement from research participants, helping them to interact meaningfully with classmates. One commented, “I really liked the conceptual quilting exercise. I think each finished quilt was like a self-portrait of the designer. I loved that it pulled all the threads together and gave me a total package picture of that person. I wrote to every person to talk about what we had in common in our quilts.” There seems to be a carryover affect from the conceptual quilting exercise as relationships begun in one course may be continued in the next. A respondent said, “The quilting exercise, even though it is at the end of the course, is good because I already knew a lot about some people who were also in my next course.”
Students comment that the quilting activity helped them review and solidify their learning. From a social interactive perspective the sharing of the completed quilts online was a way for students to acknowledge the impact that others (teachers and peers) had on their learning journey. It effectively brought closure to the course, and helped students to acknowledge and say farewell to their classmates and instructor, an important step that may be neglected in some online class experiences (Perry & Edwards, 2009).
Discussion
The three themes described a sense of shared purpose and shared values, knowing of self and others, and meaningful interaction all seem to be part of creating a “culture of community” in the online course (Perry & Edwards, 2009). As noted earlier, in a culture of community there is an alignment of purpose and sharing of values resulting in a sense of cohesion and knowledge of self and others leading to relationship development and meaningful social interactions. We suggest that in such an educational environment students and teachers have the opportunity to engage in an meaningful academic dialogue.
The development of a culture of community in an online classroom seems to be facilitated by the teaching strategies studied. There is a growing body of literature that might explain why these strategies seem to be effective. For example, Ouzts suggested that learning activities that promote negotiation and debate build community through collaboration (2006). Others cite teacher communication behaviours that reduce social and psychological distance in the online class as one way to achieve social presence (Shu-Fang & Aust, 2008).Rovai suggests that “instructors teaching at a distance may promote a sense of community by attending to seven factors: transactional distance, social presence, social equality, small group activities, group facilitation, teaching style and learning stage, and community size”(2002, p.12). Hodge et al. propose that communities of learning can be formed by mimicking proximity by addressing social and psychological factors, such as social space and social presence(2006). Bakhtin’s advises dialogue (which involves two voices) as central to pedagogical strategies that achieve a sense of social presence and community (1986). Wegerif noted that dialogue allows knowledge to be constantly constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed (2006). He recommends immediacy, communication behaviours that reduce social and psychological distance between people, as helpful in facilitating a classroom environment conducive to a culture of community (2006, p. 43).
Applying these points to the teaching strategies assessed in this study, the strategies precipitated dialogue and reduced social and psychological distances between participants. The debates obviously facilitated debate and negotiation, but the photovoice exercise also contributed in this way. The photovoice was noted by participants to create a sense of social presence. One student commented that because the instructor used photos from her personal photo album for the photovoice exercise it made her become more “real” to the learners. Finally, these strategies met Rovai’s suggestions as they attended to all of the seven factors listed (2002).
Many commonly used online teaching strategies feature traditional technology tools such as computer-mediated conferencing, online chat, or email. Researchers found these can enhanced social interaction, collaboration, and dialogue in the virtual classroom (Moisey, et al., 2008; Saritas, 2008). While these strategies are effective to an extent, we challenge online instructors need to build on these and develop, implement, and evaluate more creative teaching technologies to achieve the goal of a culture of community.
Conclusion
Interactive teaching technologies may have a role in helping create a culture of community in online classrooms. Online course designers and educators are challenged to look beyond tradition technology tools and consider new practical, simple, yet effective approaches such as photovoice, conceptual quilting, and debate.Studies of other new teaching strategies, research on strategies using larger and more diverse samples, and quantitative assessment of the effects of new teaching strategies are important future research questions.Such studies will contribute to the growing theoretical understanding of the importance of interaction, social presence, and community in online teaching while expandingour repertoire of effective online teaching technologies.
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