Building the Learning
Community
The Power of Online Learning
November 17, 2005
Lawrence C. Ragan
Steven Tello
Program Agenda
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Introductions
Key Concepts
Balancing Expectations
Learning Communities
Community of Practice
Community Context
Community Building Strategies
Introductions
• Session presenters and participants
• Who, where
• Show of hands--experience levels??
Program Description
• Provide participants with the opportunity to share
ideas and experiences on how to build learning
communities within the teaching and learning
process. Discussion will focus on how individual
experiences can contribute to development of
principles and standards of practice
Learning Communities
Community of Practice
Institutionally created
Self-generated
Experience in Domain
Shared Knowledge
Shared Knowing
Time
Critical Mass
Emerging User-need
Formal
Informal
Degree of
Structure
Learning Communities:
What are they?
• “Groups of people engaged in intellectual interaction for the purpose of
learning” Cross, 1998
• “A relatively small group that may include students, teachers,
administrators and others who have a clear sense of membership,
common goals and opportunity for extensive face-to-face interaction.”
Baker, 1999
• “ a kind of co-registration or block scheduling that enables students to
take courses together.” Tinto, 1998
• A group of people organized around common goals and
purpose and committed to learning with and from each other.
• Shared Knowledge
• Shared Knowing
Student Learning Communities
• SLC examined in depth on FTF Campus environment
• Formed primarily around course sequences or
programs of study
• Benefits include
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Increased depth of learning
Improved persistence/retention
Promote collaborative learning techniques
Extend learning beyond classroom
Expand student support circle
Student Learning Communities
• Paired/Clustered Courses
• 2 - 4 individual courses, clustered around a theme
• Typically includes writing course and seminar
• Often oriented toward freshman
• Large Course Cohorts (Freshman Interest Groups)
• Large lecture paired with smaller recitation/discussion
• Often include writing course & FIG seminar
• Team-Taught Programs
• Interdisciplinary teams with curricular focus
• Semester to Year duration
• Residence-Based Program
• Organize student cohorts, grouped around curriculum & purpose
• Activities & sometimes courses within residence halls.
SLC Examples - Syracuse U.
http://lc.syr.edu
Syracuse U. - Management
Learning Community
• Freshman program for Management majors
• Three courses
• Intro. to Management
• Intro. to Writing
• Learning Community Seminar
• Common floor in residence hall
• Team projects & activities
• Academic
• Team building
UMA-Commonwealth College
http://www.comcol.umass.edu/
UMA-Commonwealth College
• UMass Amherst Honors College
• Focus on:
• Academic Achievement
• Service Learning
• Freshman Social Network
• Honors floor in several residence halls, grouped
by major & interests
• Open to range of majors
Learning Community Pedagogy
Pedagogy
Assignment
Technology
Active Learning
Real World Cases
Current Events
Problem Solving
Semester Projects
Team/Case-based
Peer Review
Group Work Space
Discussion Forum
Email/White Boards/Chat
Group Work Space
Discussion Forum
Email/White Boards/Chat
Service Learning
Problem Solving
Reaction/Reflection
External Review
Course Website
Blogs/Podcasts
Discussion Forum
Private Note Space
Experiential Learning
Field Observations
Course Website
Critical Reflection
Blogs/Podcasts
Laufgraben
& Tompkins,
2004; Finkel,2000
Personal
Application
Discussion
Forum
Private Note Space
Collaborative Learning
Impact for Non-student
Groups
• “while we are willing to recognize the importance of shared learning
among our students, we sometimes fail to recognize the need to
become shared learners as well.” Tinto
• Learning communities can serve as a Change Force on campuses,
challenging established academic and administrative policies and
procedures.
• Is this beginning to sound familiar?
Faculty Learning
Communities
• A faculty learning community (FLC) is a crossdisciplinary faculty and staff group of size 615 (8 to 12 is the recommended size)
engaging in an active, collaborative, yearlong
program with a curriculum about enhancing
teaching and learning and with frequent
seminars and activities that provide learning,
development, interdisciplinarity, the scholarship
of teaching and learning, and community
building.
Milton D. Cox
http://www.units.muohio.edu/flc/
Types of FLC (Cox)
• Context or topic-based
• Address a special campus teaching and learning need, issue, or opportunity
• Designed to address special academic interests or common interests.
• Teaching Portfolio Development, Integrating Technology into the Case
Method, Integrating Arts & the Curriculum
• Cohort-based
• Address the teaching, learning, and developmental needs of an important
cohort of faculty or staff .
• Designed to address a broad range of issues affecting their situation.
• Graduate Faculty Circle or Senior Faculty Fellows
Miami University of Ohio
http://www.units.muohio.edu/celt/flcs/index.php
Miami University of Ohio
• 96 Faculty Learning Communities since 1979
• Hesburgh Award for faculty development
• Competitive participation process, often includes
stipend
• Guides policy and practice
Western Carolina University
http://www.wcu.edu/sotl/faclearncom.html
Characteristics of Learning
Communities (Cox)
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Safety and Trust
Openness
Respect – members feel valued & respected
Responsiveness – engendered/moderated by facilitator
Collaboration- in both creation & consultation
Relevance – relationship to participants academic life
Challenge – high expectations for quality of outcomes
Enjoyment - activities must include social opportunities
Esprit de Corps - Sharing individual and community outcomes
with colleagues
10. Empowerment - A sense that activity is focused around a crucial
element and a desired outcome
Activity: Learning
Community Contexts
• In groups, please identify a learning community
familiar to you and your collaborators. Select
one among the group and then identify:
• Type of Learning Community
• Context (institution, program, purpose)
• Characteristics
• Can you identify other types of LCs?
Table Discussion
• Examples of Learning Communities:
• Table 1--faculty LCs--discussion of challenges
(time, motivation, accessibility, ease of use,
priority management, recognition, credit)
• Table 2--Virtual Faculty LC-• Table 3--concerned about the assessment of the
process rather than the outcomes
Community of Practice (CoP)
Communities of practice develop
around things that matter to people.
E. Wenger
Background
• CoPs have been around as a field of study for a long time
• Corporate/business has recognized and valued CoPS as a
nature of managing within an increasingly complex and
information driven environment
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IBM Global Services experience
Knowledge Networks and Communities of Practice
Learning as a Social System
Collective learning and collective memory
Communispace.com, Participate.com, Tomoyne.com, SharePoint
• Overlap with field of education (Passmore example: selforganizing groups)
Community of Practice
• Communities of practice (CoP) are groups of
people who share a concern or a passion for
something they do and learn how to do it better
as they interact regularly.
• Etienne (ATN) Wenger and others
Three Essential Elements
• The domain:
(A CoP) has an identity defined by a shared domain
of interest. Membership therefore implies a
commitment to the domain, and therefore a shared
competence that distinguishes members from other
people.
Three Essential Elements
• The practice:
• Members of a CoP develop a shared repertoire of
resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of
addressing recurring problems—in short a shared
practice. This takes time and sustained interaction.
Three Essential Elements
• The community (purposeful relationships):
• Members engage in joint activities and discussions,
help each other, and share information. They build
relationships that enable them to learn from each
other.
Types of CoP Activities
• Problem solving
• "Can we work on this design and brainstorm some ideas; I’m
stuck."
• Requests for information
• "Where can I find the code to connect to the server?"
• Seeking experience
• "Has anyone dealt with a customer in this situation?"
• Reusing assets
• "I have a proposal for a local area network I wrote for a client last
year. I can send it to you and you can easily tweak it for this new
client."
Types of CoP Activities
• Coordination and synergy
• "Can we combine our purchases of solvent to achieve bulk discounts?"
• Discussing developments
• "What do you think of the new CAD system? Does it really help?"
• Documentation projects
• "We have faced this problem five times now. Let us write it down once
and for all."
• Visits
• "Can we come and see your after-school program? We need to
establish one in our city."
• Mapping knowledge and identifying gaps
• "Who knows what, and what are we missing? What other groups
should we connect with?"
Activity: CoP Contexts
• Group Think: Identify examples of community of
practice.
• Type of Community of Practice
• Digital Artists - Forum driven, learning tools, experience
User groups, SIGs
• Professional Associations
• http://www.Learningtimes.org
• OpenSource Community
• Study Group - dynamic, user-driven
• Context (institution, program, purpose)
• Blogs used as technology tool to facilitate CoP
• Characteristics
EVOLUTION OF ONLINE COMMUNITIES
User’s groups
Program Office
Freshman
Club
Department
Discussion
group
College Talk Space
Experience in Domain
Shared Knowledge
Shared Knowing
Time
Critical Mass
Emerging User-need
Systems-generated
SIGs
Self-help Teams
Virtual Study Groups
User-generated
DEGREE OF STRUCTURE
Forces along the Continuum
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Experience in Domain
Response to change
Shared Knowledge
Shared Knowing
Time
Critical Mass
Emerging User-needs
Community Building
Strategies
• Within groups identify either activity sheet for
Learning Community or Community of Practice
or both
• EXAMPLES: ANGEL groups, CyberCelebrities
• 30 Minutes group discussion
• Report out-• (send via email group work)
Strategies Feedback
• Lcr1@psu.edu
• Learning Community: faculty that teach online
• Focus on learning and to improve teaching and
learning online.
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Distributive model for sharing B&Experiences
Give a month for the outcome
Training
Defining the outcomes and
• LCR1@PSU.EDU
Summary & Future Directions
EVOLUTION OF ONLINE
COMMUNITIES
Learning Community
Community of Practice
DEGREE OF STRUCTURE
Early vs. Late Adopters
• Study of Online vs. non-online teachers
• Michele Jacobson and Alanna Edwards University of Calgary
• Orientation toward technology adoption and change may
also impact generation of and participation in CoPs.
• In comparisons of early adaptors and late adaptors to
online teaching
• Early adaptors may be more prone to developing CoPs
where late adaptors may respond more to established
• Question: Does this phenomenon exist with online
learners as well?
LC/CoP Institutional Context
• Impact of size of audience (number of members
within programs vs. institutions)
• Degree of member coherence (cohort vs.
independent)
• Member proximity (local vs. distributed)
• Institutional investment (support/value)