How can we make learning more personal within the classroom and within an on-line learning classroom? How does it compare? How is it different? And what can we do as teachers to enhance the learning community?
“There is one important element, however, that sets online distance learning apart from the traditional classroom setting: Key to the learning process are the interactions among students themselves, the interactions between faculty and students, and the collaboration in the learning that results from those interactions (Palloff 2007).” This statement and more detail later in the reading stating that in a face-to-face setting teachers do not need to focus as much on developing a community as it happens more naturally. It leads to the question, “Should we?”
“Being a part of a community that is intentionally built on recognizing, valuing, and learning from the diversity within that community can further deepen students’ understanding of self, others, and the global community in which they live and work (Powell 2010).
Some ideas to enhance the sense of community and make learning more personal is to:
1. Teaching students listening and helping skills at the beginning of a course sequence
2. Utilize diversity as part of the planning process
3. Provide opportunities for reflection
4. Allow students to get to know each other beyond a superficial level
5. Students must learn to work together toward academic achievement
6. Focus on collaboration instead of competition
7. Educating students about diversity & promoting appreciation for differences (remembering that a student’s culture is more than just race or ethnicity… consider family, hometowns, affiliated groups, etc.)
8. Group project reflection questions analyzing team member roles and strengths and weaknesses of the group in the learning process.
9. Do not limit teaching to the curriculum, stop asking “how to” and start asking “what for”
10. Frequent contact between students and professors
References:
Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building Online Learning Communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom, (2nd ed.). San Franciso: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 978-0-7879-8825-8, pages 3-65.
Powell, J. D., & Lines, J. I. (2010). Make learning personal: Recommendations for classroom practice. About Campus, 15(2), 20-25. doi:10.1002/abc.20018
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