Creating an online community.

As I consider the risks and benefits of changing the delivery method of the Introduction to Midwifery Course I am left pondering how to create the sense of community, that is easily generated in the classroom, in a similar way online. In doing this I am working under the premise that creating community is desirable to enhance the learning experience, however as I am essentially setting up a course that is a conduit for information sharing perhaps this premise is not necessary?

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (cited in Fisher, 2003) fewer than 50% of students complete on line courses, thus creating community may enhance this number by encouraging a sense of belonging within the course and responsibility towards its completion.

How to do this without meeting face to face?

Clearly in the absence of face to face meetings there is a need to create interaction. Interaction an be:

• student to content
• student to student
• student to facilitator

Activities within the course to achieve this:

• use of quick quizzes or activities related to content throughout the course material
• use of a discussion forum with directed questioning to encourage student to student debate.
• use of adobe sessions, or similar for student to facilitator interactions.

Barriers to success of above options:

• not engaging with course material and therefore not participating in the quizzes or activities.
• need to constantly monitor forum using up staff time.
• inability to make adobe sessions. Course could be running constantly in an open education forum and therefore have participants at different parts of the course all the time.

Possible solutions:

• Use video and audio of the facilitator to introduce the course and engage the student with the content.
• Offer 'reward' or incentives of being able to move to the next step once one module or activity is completed. Thus the set up would be that when you embark on the course you cannot 'unlock' all the content until you complete the modules and activities to prevent skimming of the course.
• Encourage peer assessment within the forum and allocating specific staff time to attending to it.
• Rather than having 'live' adobe, use embedded videos of the facilitator speaking to different topics with the back up of being able to contact the facilitator by email or phone.

Hmm more thinking and planning to be done.

Reference:
Fisher, M. 2003. Designing courses and teaching on the web: a how to guide to proven, innovative   strategies. Maryland, USA: Scarecrow Education.