Strategies for Building Community
A few strategies resonated with me when reviewing establishing an online community. In the Gwen Moss video, there was a mention of having an introduction. In my master’s program, requesting students to briefly introduce themselves and their background/experience in a discussion thread is a great way to familiarize themselves with their peers and better understand their experiences. Similarly, discussion boards are useful for building a community. I prefer an informal way of responding to peers’ posts. I am not interested in the academic APA responses because informal responses make me feel more connected as we do not speak academically in real life. Another great strategy is incorporating case studies. I think the case study strategy works better synchronously because the instructor and students can engage with one another using audio on Zoom and verbally interact to share ideas and hear perspectives. As a nurse looking to become a nursing educator, I would use all these strategies in my teaching because nursing is a team-based profession, and it is important students get comfortable engaging with each other in different ways and come up with solutions in teams.
References
Dunlap, J.C., & Lowenthal, P.R. (2014). The power of presence: Our quest for the right mix of social presence in online courses. In A.P. Mizell & A. A. Piña (Eds.) Real life distance education: Case studies in practice . Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Retrieved from “http://patricklowenthal.com/publications/The_power_of_presence–our_quest_for_the_right_mix_of_social_presence_in_online_courses.pdf”
University of Saskatchewan. Gwen Moss Centre For Teaching Effectiveness. (2012, November 28). Maintaining community in online courses [Video file]. Source: https://youtu.be/byCIa1Rw7tg CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA
Vesely, P., Bloom, L., & Sherlock, J. (2007). Key elements of building online community: Comparing faculty and student perceptions. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching , 3 (3), 234-246. Retrieved from “http://jolt.merlot.org/vol3no3/vesely.pdf”
