Learning Community Design: a group process

Working as a group for this assessment task in e-Learning Experiences, Models and Theories 1 (EMT1) has contributed greatly to my being in the world because as Dewey (1916) suggests, when people work together to solve problems they are learning to live in a democratic society. What I have learnt about learning communities, in EMT1, applies to both my personal development in the area of living and learning within a diverse community, and my professional role as an equity and diversity educator.

Group learning process

Our group (protestsong) displayed the typical group development phases as discussed by Federman & Hurd (2000):

 

Forming

I created a group under the general heading of social justice online using the Ning group site to invite people interested in exploring this topic. Uncertainty levels where high during the initial developmental phase, as group members did not know each other and there was lack of agreement about the focus and goals of the group. During this phase, we communicated, asynchronously, on Ning in order to get to know each other, build trust, and determine the nature of the community, necessary aspects of the development of a good online working group (Duarte and Snyder, 2001 cited by Palloff and Pratt 2005).

 

I found the asynchronous online communication extremely frustrating as I did not receive responses to my posts for extended periods and I felt unable to make consensus decisions about group development. I made telephone contact with fellow group members with a huge sense of relief, and it was through this form of communication that we finally agreed on a face-to-face (f2f) meeting. Mason and Rennie (2008) support this experience with their identification of the potential disadvantages of asynchronous online communication, including delayed response and the difficulty in getting an indication of commitment.

 

As part of this forming process, our learning facilitator encouraged us to develop a group charter to guide participation, but only one member contributed to the charter at this stage. However, although we did not develop a formal charter early on, at the first f2f meeting the group discussed how we would work together to achieve our learning goal and this was sufficient to guide our participation without any further issue.

 

Storming

Our group did not experience any significant conflict but we found it difficult to agree on where and when to meet f2f. Due to our inability to reach an agreement in this area, we lost one of our team members. Further, I felt some initial frustration at the difference in levels of participation and communication but I realised that I had to surrender and accept diversity in participation and learning styles. The initial uncertainty and conflict experienced by our group resulted in increased group cohesion and commitment enabling us to move into a productive phase involving f2f interaction (Palloff and Pratt, 2005).

 

At out first f2f meeting we were able spend some time getting to know each other on a personal level and finalising the group’s focus and individual roles. Palloff and Pratt (1999, p.33) suggest that in order to create a learning community ‘it is critical to make room for the personal, mundane – that is, everyday life’. Redmond and Lock (2006) refer to this aspect of group learning as social presence and hold it to be essential to a community of inquiry.

 

I felt that we progressed significantly during our f2f meetings in comparison to the online development through Ning. This may be because of our lack of digital literacy and our team members preferring f2f rather than online communication, with a correlative sense of familiarity and confidence in the off-line environment.

 

During this phase we sought advice about the adequacy of our small group size from our learning facilitator and were assured us that we would be fine, giving the group a sense of confidence. Garrison (2006, cited by Redmond and Lock 2006) recognises the importance of teaching presence to the learner interaction that occurs in a community of inquiry, such as our protestsong group.

 

Performing and learning

After our fist f2f meeting we were able to perform as a group of people with a common goal and commitment to the ‘collective effort of understanding’ (Bielaczyc and Collins, 1999, p.269); we had become a learning community. The group we formed can be best described as blended learning community because the learning process was occurring both online and f2f.

 

Our online learning occurred through the protestsong wiki where we created structures that paralleled the roles appointed to each group member, which in turn paralleled our learning goal. At this stage of group development, the community was ready for collaborative learning to occur, that is, student-to-student interaction that supports socially constructed meaning and creation of knowledge (Palloff and Pratt, 2005). However, the way we worked with the wiki was significantly individualised with each group member focusing on her task and only receiving limited feedback in the final stages of the learning process. Federman and Hurd (2000 p.9) recognise the limitation of this way of learning when they suggest that ‘dividing tasks and working alone on them does not achieve the benefit of cooperative learning’.

 

I felt that individualised learning, partly caused by time restrictions and perhaps insufficient participation by all community members, limited my learning. For example, I mentioned to our group member that developed the storyboard, that I wanted to learn how she created it and imported it into the wiki but I did not get an opportunity to do this as part of the group process. Hence, despite forming a learning community and having a collaborative online learning tool – the wiki, I feel that I continued to learn on my own, and as such, did not benefit from collaborative learning and critical thinking (Gokhale, 1995), in the group process. However, learning occurred through connecting with others, being part of the group, creating new knowledge, and receiving feedback no matter how late in the process.

Application to learning communities

The learning I have gained through the group learning process complements well what I have learned about online learning communities through being an active participant in two such groups – the Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy (Freire Project) and the E-learning Experiences Ning Community. On reflection, although there are distinguishing characteristics of online communities, the processes involved in forming community, collaborative learning, inhibitors, and solutions required are very similar off-line. Hence, my learning experience in EMT1 will inform my experiences, as a facilitator and member, of both f2f and online learning communities such as those I belong to in my professional and personal life.

 

Lessons for my practice

The lessons relevant to learning communities that I will take away from the group learning process and EMT1 are as follows:

 

• Learning communities are a group of people with a common learning goal and, as such, display the stages of group development: forming, storming, performing (Ferdman and Hurd, 2000)
• Collaborative learning is a crucial aspect of learning communities (Palloff and Pratt, 2005) which needs to be actively fostered
• There are three key elements to a learning community: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence (Redmond and Lock, 2006)
• The design or facilitation of a learning community needs to take into account these aspects and elements (Wenger, 1999)
• In learning communities technology is a tool used to promote learning outcomes (Siemens and Tittenberger, 2009)
• Digital illiteracy is a individual barrier (Bartlett-Brown, 08) that needs to be addressed in the implementation of online learning communities
• Leadership or teaching presence, either in person or online in the form of a moderator, plays an important role in facilitating learning (Sessums, 2008)
• Learning in community necessitates recognition of diversity in participation and learning styles – with some people learning by being lurkers (Nonnecke and Preece, 2000)
• Learning will occur in online and f2f learning communities through learner-centred connectivism  (Siemens and Tittenberger, 2009) as well as through instructional learning (Palloff and Pratt 2005)
• Learning communities need space and time to create trust through social interaction, including conflict ((Palloff and Pratt 2005)
• Online communities need to support both asynchronous and synchronous communication (Mason and Rennie 2008)
• Learning communities can benefit from blended learning which addresses the diversity of learners

 

 References

 

Bartlett-Brown, A. 2008, The Changing Learning Landscape, LTUG Webinar, Slideshare, http://www.slideshare.net/AnneBB/the-changing-learning-landscape, (Accessed on 27 May 2009).

 

Bielaczyc, K. & Collins, A. 1999, ‘Learning Communities in Classrooms: A Reconceptualization of Educational Practice’, in Reigeluth, C. (ed), Instructional-design Theories and Models Volume II: A new Paradigm of Instructional Theory, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, London.

 

Dewey, J. 1916, Democracy and Education, Institute for Learning Technologies, http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/dewey.html, (Accessed on 27 May 2009).

 

Federman, S. R. & Hurd, S. 2000, Using student teams in the classroom; a faculty guide, Anker, Boston.

 

Gokhale, A. 1995, ‘Collaborative Learning Enhances Critical Thinking’, Journal of technology Education, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 22-30.

 

Mason, R. & Rennie, F. 2008, E-learning and Social Networking Handbook, Routledge, New York.

 

Nonnecke, B. & Preece, J. 2000, ‘Silent Participants: Getting to Know Lurkers Better?’ Chapter 6, pp. 110-132, From Usernet to CoWebs, http://cis.uoguelph.ca/~nonnecke/research/silentparticipants.pdf, (Accessed on 21April 2009.

 

Palloff, R., M. & Pratt, K. 1999, Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace; effective strategies for online classroom,, Jossey-Bass, San Franscisco.

 

Palloff, R., M. & Pratt, K. 2005, Collaborating Online: Learning Together in Community, Jossey-Bass, San Franscisco.

 

Redmon, P., & Lock, V. 2006, A flexible framework for online collaborative learning, The Internet and Higher Education, 9, pp. 267 – 276.

 

Sessums, C. 2008, ‘Online Learning Community Design Issues’, Christopher D. Sessums’ Blog, weblog, Social Networks in Education, Brighton, http://eduspaces.net/csessums/weblog/281794.html, (Accessed 24 April 2009).

 

Siemens, G. & Tittenberger, P. 2009, Handbook of Emerging technologies for Learning, http://www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/cetl/HETL.pdf, (Accessed on 21 April 2009.

 

Wenger, E. 1998, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

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