| Conference Registration WebCT Homepage | |
|
|
| Wednesday, July 12, 2006: 11:15 AM-12:00 PM | |||
| Superior B Room (Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers) | |||
| B-7: Building and Sustaining Community Online: Research and WebCT Strategies | |||
| Detailed Description: | WebCT offers a number of tools for building and sustaining community in online courses. Distance learning literature shows that online courses with more student-to-student interaction and student-to-teacher interaction are more satisfying and effective. This session will describe the presenter’s own research on the challenges faculty members face in building and sustaining a sense of community in their online courses. Learn about effective strategies study participants used to address their challenges and how you can implement these strategies in your own WebCT courses. | ||
| Presentation Format: | Showcase | ||
| Topic: | Enabling learning: Effective instructional practices and student support models | ||
| Target Audience: | Course Designers, Faculty and Other Instructors, E-learning Managers | ||
| Appropriate Audience Level: | Beginning or new users of WebCT, Experienced WebCT users | ||
| Abstract Text: | WebCT offers a number of tools for building and sustaining community in online courses and for addressing challenges that faculty members face related to community. The distance learning literature includes many studies on student satisfaction in online courses, and it is clear that those with more student-to-student interaction and student-to-teacher interaction, both of which are necessary for sense of community, are more satisfying and effective than those with less interaction. When asked, faculty members tend to agree that sense of community is important. There are many guidebooks and prescriptive texts available on community building for faculty to consult when they are learning to teach online, but there is little empirical research on the challenges they face specifically related to building and maintaining community online. Sherry asked faculty who felt valued community about the challenges they faced and how they addressed them. They observed three major challenges. First, faculty found the delays inherent in asynchronous communication affected the types of activities they included in course assignments and how they provided feedback to their students. Second, faculty found it difficult to mediate conflict in their online course communities. Where they would otherwise call students into their offices or ask students to stay after class, these options are not available online. Finally, faculty were challenged by the fact that some students were not interested in the community component of the class. For many faculty, this was a major conflict with their online teaching philosophies. Addressing these challenges, faculty utilize careful course design beforehand and skilled facilitation while teaching the course, and they noted that sometimes the students handled the challenging situations themselves. WebCT features like Discussions and Mail as well as content management tools provide the means for faculty and their students to address community-related challenges they encounter in online courses. | ||
| Session Leader: | Sherry A. Clouser The University of Georgia | ||
See more of The 8th Annual WebCT User Conference