Abstract: Online learning course is becoming increasingly popular in the world. It gives students more options and flexibility to choose their courses and arrange their study time. It is also cheaper and faster for a student to get a degree or certificate. With the booming of online courses, online communities for learning also increase rapidly. Online community plays a very important role in online learning course, because most of communications, discussion and posts that relate to online learning are happening in the online communities. This conference paper will argue that online course community is a strong support for online learning courses.

Keywords: online learning course, online community, learning efficacy, higher education

Introduction

In the twenty-first century, people can nearly have access to the Internet anytime and anywhere. With the help of convenient mobile Internet devices, a growing number of students start to enroll in online learning courses. A report conducted by Allen and Seaman (2012) shows that the online learning courses enrolment has increased from 0.57 million students in 2012 to 6.7million students in 2013 in America, and 32% of students in all colleges and universities are registered in at least one online course. Similarly, a study shows that online learning course is increasing rapidly at the higher education in Canada, and the enrollment of online learning courses is growing faster than that of on-campus course (Hirshhorn, 2001). Online learning courses refer that courses are provided online, the teacher and the students don’t need to meet in a physical place and the activities of teaching and learning is processed online.

One of most distinctive characteristics of online learning course is that students and teacher do not need face-to-face communication, student usually use a computer to receive learning materials, and most of learning activities and interactions between students and teachers and other students take place in online communities.

The word of ‘community’ usually refers to geographic concept. According to the book of Marshall, Dictionary of Sociology published in1998, there are two elements in this concept, one is a group of people within a similar structure and another is a consciousness of a social structure. But now the meaning of community is changing from geographic concept into various relationship concepts. The meaning of online course community usually refers to that a group of people share learning materials and exchange ideas about academic questions of a course through the Internet, most of the learning activities happen in the Internet (Phirangee, 2016).

With the increasing growth of online course enrollment in most universities, online courses are also facing various of problems, such as the low quality of teaching, ineffective learning process, poor learning content, the lack of interactivity between online learners and instructor as well as the lack of ineffective communication between online learners in a online learning community. In order to help online learners to have a more effective learning experience, many instructors are encouraging online learners to spend more time on interactions and discussion with other students. In addition, a number of instructors try to build a sense of online course community, which means a sense that can help online learners to have trust between online learners and their teachers as well as interactivity between them. It is also believe that a strong sense of online course community will reduce the feelings of isolation, which is the main reason of many online learners dropping out from online courses. It is highly suggested by many instructors that a strong sense of online course community could help online learners find the trust in teachers and confidence to learn in an online course. Communication and interaction between an instructor and students are vital parts for a successful online learning course.

The importance of online course community for an online learning course

    The success of an online course depends on whether or not there is an effective and supportive online course community, the interactions in online course community can contribute to a more effective online learning process. In addition, online course community can give students time to organize their thoughts and words before they post their ideas and opinions in the online course community. Students will have a better chance to understanding of what they have posted, what the difference is between their posts and other students’ posts, who they are posting for, and how to improve their next posts by interacting with others as well as teachers in the online course communities. The process of the above interactions in online course community can assist students share their thoughts and perspectives, and it also creates chance that could lead to new knowledge (Comeaux, 2002).

Another important function of online course community is that it could help to reduce the feelings of disconnection and isolation. The online course communities is usually set up by the online course provider. The reason why online students may feel disconnected and isolated is that the physical separation of online learners and the lack of interactions between online learners as well as the lack of meaningful interaction between online learners and their instructor (Carr, 2000). This is also the main reason why a number of online learners drop out of online learning course in high education level (Angelino, Williams, & Natvig; 2007). Online course community is a solution to the main problem of online learning course and a useful tool for online teaching. Most of online learning activities take place in online course community, so how to maintain a strong connection between students and the online course community is vital for an online learning course. A strong sense of online course community can attract online students to spend more time and energy on the activities of online course community. Thus a strong sense of online course community can help students to build the trust and social relationship between online learners (Blanchard & Markus, 2004), and it can also minimize the possibility of isolation and dropping out from an online learning course.

An online course community is also possible to help online learners to achieve good academic outcomes. According to Lyon (1970), the most effective way to learn is that the learners’ achievements, feelings and emotions are respected and valued by the peers and instructors. The function of online course community is like a classroom or a lecture in an on-campus course. The online learners can share their ideas and answers at anytime and anywhere. Unlike the on-campus course, you do not need to wait for your group member arriving to start a discussion, you can start a discussion at any time as long as you have time to engage in an online course community. This is a more effective way to learn and get an academic feedback. Many important improvements could happen in an online course community as students are more engaged in the activities of online course community. They can deepen their understandings and thinking by sharing views. In an active online course community, students are more likely to build the habit of reviewing their own ideas from a new perspective by sharing and discussing their thoughts and experiences (Salmon, 2000). By practicing the learning process in that way, there is a higher possibility of that it will lead to a better academic outcomes. A strong sense of belonging in online learning community is also a powerful motivation for online learners. Online course community is not just an online place for online learners to meet but also a most important part for motivate online learners, it gives them a safe cyber space to review and develop their ideas. Though the process of reviewing their own ideas and analyzing other online learners’ ideas, the students on an online course community can develop an emotional and academic support for each other (McMillan & Chavis 1986).

How to build an effective online course community

An effective online course community is that the communication between online learners and the teachers is effective. There are five factors that can contribute to fostering an effective online course community, they are valuing identities, promoting interaction, sharing personal experience, developing shared interests and supporting group members (Phirangee, 2016).

     The first factor, valuing identity, is that the online learners can feel that they are members of online course community, and they also need to feel that their identities are accepted and respected in an online course community. The acceptance means that the online learners can be recognized and share their questions without feeling embarrassed because it is necessary for the online learners that they can get support from their online classmates and instructors. Once an online learner’s identity is accepted by the online course community, then he or she can start the learning activities with other members in the online course community. In these learning activities, the online learners have chances to engaged in diverse ideas and learn about others’ community identities.

The second factor is interaction, it is a most important part for building an online course community. This factor contains a number of interactions, including joint activities, assessment discussion and emotional communications. There are three different interactions that contribute to supporting the online learning (Phirangee, 2016): learner to content interaction means the online learners have chance to access learning materials and produce new ideas by combining with their own knowledge; learner to learner interaction means that online learners can discuss with community members about the learning materials in order to foster au understanding and build an active online course community; finally, the online learner to instructor interaction means that the online learners communicate with their instructors to obtain feedback. A study (Swan, 2001) show that if the online learners have a higher level of interaction in an online course community, they are more likely satisfied and feeling that they have learned more than those who have a lower level of interaction in an online course community. In addition, the interaction with learning materials, the instructor and online classmates are necessary for online learners to have a positive attitude and meaningful online course community. Effective interaction can help online learners have a better understanding of the learning materials and provide them personal satisfaction and enjoyable online course community.

     The third factor is shared interests. It means that the online learners have common interests and academic purpose and practices. A research suggests that the online learners are more likely to be motivated to review and reconsider their own thoughts from a perspective (Salmon, 2000). Thus in order to develop and maintain an online course community, the instructor should try to help online learners to find more shared interests.

    The fourth factor is sharing personal information. It means that the online learner should share their personal learning experience and express their views, thoughts and emotions, this will help online learners to deepen their academic ideas and expend the knowledge of the selected online course. If the online learners are able to share their emotions about the online course and community, it will help the online learners to foster trust between online learners, which will enhance the online course community.

    The fifth is the supporting and helping from teachers for the online learners in the online community, which means helping the online learners to build a strong personal relationship with each other and cultivate online learning; having an interest in other online learners and willing to help other online learners. This also needs the instructor to encourage online learners to support, guild and motivate all line learners by different online course activities. The instructor should encourage online learners to support each other’s learning to achieve their academic goals.

Conclusion

Online education is increasing rapidly in higher education, it is also leading to that there is more enrollments in online courses than on-campus courses (Hirshhorn, 2011). A number of post –secondary school have put lots of financial resources on online course development in order to attract the increasing number of online learners and online course enrolment (Hew, 2015). A number of articles have emphasized that a successful online learning course is based on the interactions between instructor and students. The instructor should spend more time on planning and designing the structure of online learning course and the online course community to promote students to have more interests in sharing ideas and discussing questions. It is more valuable for students on an online course to get a solution or an answer from the interactive learnings with other students online than directly from an instructor, because it will encourage students to develop the ability of analysis and communication during the process of interactive learning. In the future, the online course community will continue to play in important role in helping online learning courses to succeed.

Reference

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