Chapter 2. Designing for Community in Online Learning Settings

Jennifer Banas and Russell Wartalski*

This chapter is for librarians seeking to improve learning outcomes among adult learners by fostering community in online courses. To help the reader learn how to do this, we make use of recognized community-focused frameworks and concepts, including communities of practice, dimensions of community, modes of belonging, levels of community, the community of inquiry model, and the expanded community of inquiry model.1 Also relevant to the discussion are situated learning theory, self-regulation, and transactional distance.2 We do not seek to be a primer on these models and concepts; instead, we use them to understand the traits of learner communities and to organize the practices that support them in online settings.

When it comes to online instruction, we expect readers of this chapter will have expertise spanning from novice to expert. As a guiding framework, radical change theory and its three digital-age principles—connectivity, interactivity, and access—can help librarian instructors to critically consider best practices in fostering virtual learning communities in an evolving digital landscape.3 While initially a theory developed to describe the radical changes in children’s and young adult literature, radical change theory can also be applied to other settings.4 For example, Burns, Howard, and Kimmel contended that the theory helps to explain the contemporary changes in information behavior and resources and used it to examine collaborative learning among preservice school librarians in an online course.5 At the end of this chapter, we will demonstrate how the three digital-age principles can be used to guide instructional decisions for online learning environments.

Community, Learning Communities, and Communities of Practice

Over the years, researchers and practitioners have provided different definitions focused on community and learning. Community is “a group of people who are socially interdependent, who participate together in discussion and decision making, and who share practices that both define the community and are nurtured by it.”6 Learning communities are made up of people, purpose, and a process that ultimately leads to reflection and transformation.7 Communities of practice are “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and experience in this area by interacting in an ongoing basis.”8 In examining these definitions, we see that a common feature is people purposefully coming together and being transformed by the process. Since the communities of practice framework provides more insight into the role of community in learning, we expand upon it here.

According to Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder, the purpose of a community of practice is “to create, expand, and exchange knowledge, and to develop individual capabilities,” and it is held together by “passion, commitment, and identification with the group and its expertise.”9 They suggested that such communities are made up of three structural elements: domain, community, and practice. The domain is a shared learning need that inspires members to participate and gives purpose to their actions. Within this domain are a common ground and a sense of shared identity. Community refers to the interactions and relationships that develop based on respect and trust, with the outcome being a sense of belonging and mutual commitment. Finally, practice is a set of frameworks, ideas, tools, information, styles, stories, documents, and language shared within a community. In an online learning environment, the domain is the topic on which learners focus and usually is set by the instructor, but community and practice, as will become apparent later, are the shared responsibility of the learner and the instructor.

Why Is Community Important?

In their research on adult learners, Knowles, Holton, and Swanson noted, “Adult learners like to share their knowledge.”10 It is the sharing of knowledge that leads to the first step of cultivating community. Lave and Wenger also expanded on the essence of community and learning in situated learning theory.11 Specifically, according to their theory, learning is a process requiring both social interaction and collaboration. Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder pushed the idea further and noted, “Learning is a matter of belonging as well as an intellectual process.”12 As a result, content alone cannot be the basis for instruction. “By learning together in a learning community, students have the opportunity to extend and deepen their learning experience, test out new ideas by sharing them with a supportive group, and receive critical and constructive feedback.”13 One begins to realize that adult learners look for ways to purposefully enhance their learning and to expand their connection with other individuals. With these points in mind, librarian instructors can take steps to create community in online learning environments.

In online settings, planning for and nurturing a learning community is almost as important as planning the curriculum.14 Boling and colleagues found that when a sense of connection was lacking, learners described their online experiences as being less enjoyable, less helpful, and more frustrating.15 Rovai found when a sense of connection was established, learners were more likely to persist, and there was greater potential for commitment and cooperation among learners, as well as satisfaction with group efforts.16 To some degree, this is because communities provide learners with the opportunity to extend and deepen their learning, to test out new ideas in a supportive setting, and to receive critical and constructive feedback.17

Since there is a transactional distance between learners and their peers and between learners and their instructor, the potential lack of community in virtual settings is greater than in face-to-face settings. Moore noted that this distance is both psychological and physical and is a function of dialogue and structure.18 To bridge this distance, instructors must provide ample opportunities for learners to interact with them and their peers in meaningful ways that promote feelings of connectedness. In the next section, we describe an ideal learning community and the course elements necessary to support its existence.

Fostering a Community of Learners

What Makes for a Good Community?

While the need for community may vary from one learner to the next, the characteristics of an ideal community are more commonly accepted. Rovai posited that a classroom community is made up of four dimensions: spirit, trust, interactions, and shared expectations.19 Spirit recognizes the concept of membership and the feelings of friendship, cohesion, and bonding that develop among learners as they enjoy each other’s company. According to Rovai, this spirit allows learners to challenge and nurture each other, thus creating a supportive environment for learning. Trust refers to the feeling that members can be relied upon for support. This trust is predicated upon members’ credibility and benevolence. Interactions, high-quality activities that focus on tasks, can contribute to a community. Relation-building exercises can serve to enhance connection among community members. Finally, there should be common expectations and goals. In an online learning environment, the learning goals serve as a common purpose, and the instructor establishes expectations for learners.

Offering another perspective, Wenger and Wenger-Trayner contended that community requires various modes of belonging: engagement, alignment, imagination, and identification.20 Engagement refers to opportunities to form relationships and purposefully interact with others. Alignment assumes that there are opportunities to organize and produce a product socially. Imagination allows members to experience and explore others’ perspectives and roles. Lastly, identification is the relational process between an individual and their environment. Collectively, these modes help to form community and help learners feel part of it. As a result, librarians teaching in online learning environments should consider the ways in which their instruction nurtures these modes.

What Course Elements Foster a Community of Learners?

While an instructor might value community, forming it can be an elusive goal in online settings where learners do not have the opportunity to engage with each other or the instructor face-to-face.21 However, according to Wellman, when the concept of community is perceived as what people do together, rather than where they do it, then the geographical and spatial differences become less important.22 That means there is hope for forming community in an online setting!

According to Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, an instructor can and should take specific actions to foster community in online settings.23 They organized these actions into the community of inquiry model, a model that describes and explains the behaviors and processes required to nurture knowledge construction by cultivating three forms of presence: teaching, social, and cognitive. Teaching presence refers to the instructor’s role in the organization of content, the design of activities, facilitation of discourse, and direct instruction and how these decisions promote a productive community of inquiry. Social presence refers to activities that support a functional collaborative environment based on positive affect, interaction, and cohesion. Cognitive presence stems from a cyclical process of critical inquiry within a community of learners. This kind of inquiry stems from instructional activities, including a triggering event (e.g., a problem to solve), exploration (e.g., locating and evaluating information about the problem), integration (e.g., applying collected information to the problem), and resolution (e.g., presenting a solution to a problem and reflecting on the outcome).24

Though perhaps its presence within the community of inquiry model is implied, Shea and Bidjerano advocated for the explicit naming of a fourth presence, learning, rooted in self-regulation theory.25 In this context, the learner must demonstrate both self-efficacy and effort, as well as time- and task-management skills.26 Shea and Bidjerano argued that without this presence, the original model, made up of interdependent components, neglects the role of learners in their own learning and within their community.27 With or without this fourth presence, the community of inquiry model promotes a learning environment in which learners feel comfortable and confident in communicating with each other and their instructor about important and relevant topics in ways that promote knowledge construction.

Designing Course and Learning Experiences That Foster and Sustain Community

Brown theorized that community formation occurs at three levels.28 At the first level, learners make online acquaintances with others like themselves. At the next level, community conferment occurs, and learners feel a sense of membership and kinship. At the third level, learners experience camaraderie, but only after long-term and intense association with others involving personal communication. If deeper levels of community are desired, at what points in a course does a librarian instructor foster them? In this section, we offer practical instructional design suggestions to foster and sustain community at various points throughout a course. To do this, we turn to radical change theory and Boettcher and Conrad’s step-by-step directives for building online courses.29

As indicated in the introduction, radical change theory is rooted in three primary digital-age principles: interactivity, connectivity, and access.30 According to Dresang and Koh, interactivity refers to dynamic, nonlinear, and nonsequential learning and information behaviors that occur with an increasing sense of control by end users.31 Connectivity refers to the sense of community that emerges from changing perspectives and expanded associations. And access refers to the breaking down of information barriers, allowing for a wide diversity of formerly inaccessible opinion. These principles could be used by librarian instructors who are more familiar with face-to-face instruction to make instructional decisions specific to the online setting.32 For example, in what new ways does online instruction afford access to information and broader opinion, and how could an instructor capitalize on that as a learning opportunity? Or what new digital tools could promote connectivity between learners, with their instructor, and with expertise outside of the formal course setting? Or how does online instruction support new ways to interact with information and put learners in the driver’s seat to explore it? When combined with Boettcher and Conrad’s stages of an online course, these three digital-age principles also can help instructors to purposefully create online learning environments that support and sustain learner communities in what we now know to be a forever-evolving digital landscape.33

Boettcher and Conrad divide online courses into four stages: course beginnings, early middle, late middle, and closing weeks or course ends.34 Borrowing concepts from the community of inquiry model, levels of community, and dimensions of community,35 for each stage Boettcher and Conrad offer specific tips to accomplish course goals. In table 2.1, we highlight some of those tips as they relate to building community and offer some of our own. We also demonstrate how these activities align with radical change theory’s digital principles to help instructors to critically consider which activities to implement during course beginnings, middles, and ends as a means to support and sustain learning communities.

The activities listed in table 2.1 are not intended to be exhaustive, but merely an introduction to how librarian instructors can foster community at different stages of an online course. We suggest that the reader refer to Boettcher and Conrad for additional suggestions and more detailed descriptions.36 Also, we recognize not all librarians will be teaching multisession courses; therefore, instructors would have to modify activities accordingly, as well as expectations about the level of community to be reached.37 Whatever the course length, Boettcher and Conrad remind instructors that the goal of community in an online course should be to build knowledge and competency by way of a network of mutual respect and the sharing of ideas and perspectives.38

In Closing

According to Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder, a community is the social fabric of learning. Communities help “to create, expand, and exchange knowledge, and to develop individual capabilities.”39 Attempting to foster community is particularly important due to the transactional distance both learners and instructors may feel in virtual learning environments.40 When online learners are part of communities built on spirit, trust, interactions, and common expectations, they are more likely to persist, to cooperate, and to report satisfaction.41 As a result, “nurturing a learning community as part of a course is almost as important as being present for your learners.”42

In this chapter, we shared recognized course elements associated with the promotion of learning communities and a critical lens through which librarian instructors can make instructional decisions as electronic forms of instruction continue to evolve. By exploring different theories and frameworks, particularly those known to maximize knowledge construction through social connection, we allow for equal opportunity for learner engagement.43 Through such practices, we not only attend to the needs of adult learners, including their need for professional identity, but we also allow them to experience others’ perspectives and to explore other roles.44 In doing so, the librarian instructor is not only a director of content, but also a facilitator of learning.

Notes

1. Michael G. Moore, “Theory of Transactional Distance,” in Theoretical Principles of Distance Education, ed. Desmond Keegan, (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997), 22–38; Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Alfred P. Rovai, “Sense of Community, Perceived Cognitive Learning, and Persistence in Asynchronous Learning Networks,” Internet and Higher Education 5, no. 4 (2002): 319–32; Ruth E. Brown, “The Process of Community-Building in Distance Learning Classes,” Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 5, no. 2 (2001): 18–35; D. Randy Garrison, Terry Anderson, and Walter Archer, “Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education,” Internet in Higher Education 2, no. 2–3 (2000): 87–105; Peter Shea and Temi Bidjerano. “Learning Presence: Towards a Theory of Self-Efficacy, Self-Regulation, and the Development of a Communities of Inquiry in Online and Blended Learning Environments,” Computers and Education 55, no. 4 (December 2010): 1721–31, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.07.017.
2. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Barry J. Zimmerman, “Becoming a Self-Regulated Learner: An Overview,” Theory into Practice 41, no. 2 (Spring 2002): 64–70; Moore, “Theory of Transactional Distance.”
3. Eliza T. Dresang, Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1999).
4. Eliza T. Dresang and Kyungwon Koh, “Radical Change Theory, Youth Information Behavior, and School Libraries,” Library Trends 58, no. 1 (Summer 2009): 26–50, https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.0.0070.
5. Elizabeth A. Burns, Jody K. Howard, and Sue C. Kimmel, “Development of Communities of Practice in School Library Education,” Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 57, no. 2 (2016): 101–11, https://doi.org/10.12783/issn.2328-2967/57/2/3.
6. Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), 333.
7. Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt, Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007).
8. Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder, Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002), 4.
9. Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder, Cultivating Communities of Practice, 42.
10. Malcolm S. Knowles, Elwood F. Holton, and Richard A. Swanson, The Adult Learner: The Definitive Classic in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 8th ed. (London: Routledge, 2015), 297.
11. Lave and Wenger, Situated Learning.
12. Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder, Cultivating Communities of Practice, 29.
13. Palloff and Pratt, Building Online Learning Communities, 8.
14. Judith V. Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad, The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2016).
15. Erica C. Boling, Mary Hough, Hafiz Krinsky, Hindi Saleem, and Maggie Stevens, “Cutting the Distance in Distance Education: Perspectives on What Promotes Positive, Online Learning Experiences,” Internet and Higher Education 15, no. 2 (March 2012): 118–26, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.11.006.
16. Rovai, “Sense of Community.”
17. Palloff and Pratt, Building Online Learning Communities.
18. Moore, “Theory of Transactional Distance.”
19. Rovai, “Sense of Community.”
20. Wenger, Communities of Practice; Etienne Wenger and Beverly Wenger-Trayner, “Learning in Landscapes of Practice: A Framework,” in Learning in Landscapes of Practice: Boundaries, Identity, and Knowledgeability in Practice-Based Learning (London: Routledge, 2014), 13–30.
21. Burns, Howard, and Kimmel, “Development of Communities of Practice.”
22. Barry Wellman, Networks in the Global Village: Life in Contemporary Communities. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998).
23. Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, “Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment.”
24. For specific examples in the library science instruction in educational settings, see Marcia E. Rapchak, “Creating a Community of Inquiry in Online Library Instruction,” Journal of Library and Information Services in Distance Learning 11, no. 1/2 (2017): 59–67, https://doi.org/10.1080/1533290X.2016.1226577.
25. Shea and Bidjerano, “Learning Presence”; Zimmerman, “Becoming a Self-Regulated Learner.”
26. Shea and Bidjerano, “Learning Presence”; Jessica Pool, Gerda Reitsma, and Dirk van den Berg, “Revised Community of Inquiry Framework: Examining Learning Presence in a Blended Mode of Delivery,” Online Learning 21, no. 3 (2017): 153–65.
27. Shea and Bidjerano, “Learning Presence.”
28. Brown, “Process of Community-Building.”
29. Judith V. Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad, The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010); Boettcher and Conrad, Online Teaching Survival Guide, 2nd ed.
30. Dresang, Radical Change; Dresang and Koh, “Radical Change Theory.”
31. Dresang and Koh, “Radical Change Theory.”
32. Burns, Howard, and Kimmel, “Development of Communities of Practice.”
33. Boettcher and Conrad, Online Teaching Survival Guide, 1st ed.; Boettcher and Conrad, Online Teaching Survival Guide, 2nd ed.
34. Boettcher and Conrad, Online Teaching Survival Guide, 1st ed.; Boettcher and Conrad, Online Teaching Survival Guide, 2nd ed.
35. Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, “Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment”; Brown, “Process of Community-Building”; Rovai, “Sense of Community.”
36. Boettcher and Conrad, Online Teaching Survival Guide, 2nd ed.
37. Brown, “Process of Community-Building.”
38. Boettcher and Conrad, Online Teaching Survival Guide, 2nd ed.; Brown, “Process of Community-Building”; Rovai, “Sense of Community.”
39. Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder, Cultivating Communities of Practice, 42.
40. Moore, “Theory of Transactional Distance.”
41. Rovai, “Sense of Community.”
42. Boettcher and Conrad, Online Teaching Survival Guide, 2nd ed., 47.
43. Burns, Howard, and Kimmel, “Development of Communities of Practice.”
44. Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder, Cultivating Communities of Practice.

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