Community is an important aspect of learning. Students can easily feel isolated in a virtual environment. Therefore, we want to provide multiple opportunities for them to connect with their instructor and their peers. The look and feel of virtual community, along with the process of building community virtually, differs from that of face-to-face learning. This page lists a variety of suggestions for creating a positive and communal virtual learning experience for both yourself and your students.

Communicate Often

Create a communication plan.

How do you plan to communicate to students? (e.g. Announcements forum, Moodle Quickmail)
How often will you send out regular communication? (e.g. weekly, every Tuesday and Thursday)
Once you have a plan established, share it with students.

Ideas for what to include in your regular communication

Remind students of upcoming assignments and due dates.
Provide a progress update – what have the students done already, and where are they going from here?
Highlight accomplishments.
Provide tips that will help overcome misconceptions.
Let students know when you have graded their assignments.

Set clear expectations

Make sure that students understand how to interact with the resources and activities you provide.
When are assignments due?
How will assignments be graded?

Be Present

Create and interact in discussion forums
Incorporate videos that you create
Lead synchronous class meetings via Zoom
Hold office hours via Zoom
Provide assignment feedback quickly

Provide Interactive Spaces

Introduction Forum – create a forum for students to introduce themselves to one another. This is vital for a Q4 course, but it could be helpful for semester-long courses as well. Students may not know all of their classmates in their face-to-face classroom, so an Introduction forum can be a great place for students to know more of their classmates.
Course Support Forum – create a forum that provides a place for students to ask questions about content or assignments that can be answered by the instructor or other students
Prayer Requests – create a forum for students to share prayer requests with each other
Social Discussion (Just for Fun!) – create a fun forum where you pose a question to the class. For example, what is your new favorite pass time now that we are practicing social distancing? Post a description, photo, or video.
Group Discussion Forums – for larger classes, separate discussions into small groups
Collaboration Tools – encourage students to use real-time collaboration features on Office365 or Zoom
Peer Feedback – create learning activities that encourage peer feedback
Group Projects – group projects are still possible. Student can collaborate using Office 365 products (Word, PowerPoint), create presentations together using VoiceThread, or meet via Zoom

Resources

Inside Higher Ed: Professors Share Ideas for Building Community in Online Courses

EdSurge: How to Build Meaningful Community for Online Learners #DLNchat

eLearning Industry: 6 Tips To Build A Thriving Online Learning Community

University of Minnesota: Engage Students with Online Discussions

Building Community at a Distance (39:26)

This webinar was conducted by the Online Learning Office in July 2020.