Creating a Positive Learning Environment within Different Times and Spaces

Online classes vary in the number of learners and the time frame for the course. Some programs continue year round. For example, in the design and structure for one online course, learners may work on their own and turn in assignments to a teacher who evaluates the materials. There are no required chat sessions or other forms of synchronous communication. The learners in this type of program like the freedom of completing assignments at their own pace, as long as they finish within the parameter of the course’s final due date. E-mail keeps teacher and student in touch, but there is little learner-to-learner communication, and the amount of learner-to-teacher or teacher-to-learner communication varies with the student’s needs and personality.

In this example, the teacher and learner have to develop a tiny learning community. They define what makes the class real, and they mostly create a sense of the classroom through their individual work spaces. The student creates a time and place for completing course activities and basically builds his or her “classroom” individually. The teacher does the same. However, the connection between teacher and learner—the rapport, shared insights, and suggestions for studying a subject—makes the class a true educational experience. Creating a learning community, even with two people, is a big part of creating a sense of classroom and “real education.”

Other institutions treat online classes similar to on-site classes, with one group of students taking a course during the same time frame and working on at least some projects together. Working entirely alone is not an option, if learners want to complete all assignments successfully. For example, enrollment in one class may be limited to 15-20; some classes may be smaller, but most courses are filled to the cutoff number.

Learners in this scenario have a clear start and end date for each course, but the courses may vary in length, anywhere from a minicourse of three or four weeks to a short six-week course to a more traditional (in terms of on-site education) 12-15 weeks. Learners are expected to facilitate their own learning, and the readings, whether linked to the course site or found in a hardcopy textbook, are a large part of the coursework. However, learners also participate in group activities that allow them to discuss ideas with each other and to complete team projects, such as papers and role playing.

Required chat sessions, videoconferences, conference calls, and voluntary group chats help learners create a sense of camaraderie. They build a classroom within the time frame of events, such as a chat session, in which all participants work together. When the event involves synchronous communication, like a chat or a videoconference, the classroom is the electronic network that joins members of a learning community. Although the place varies, with learners from different geographic locations participating in the chat or videoconference, the shared real-time framework creates a sense that everyone is in the same classroom.

When learners use asynchronous communication to work with others, they lose the connection of time as the foundation of their classroom. However, they still have other experiences that bond them to other learners: Because they are working as a group, independently doing the same assignments and sometimes meeting to talk with each other and complete a project together, they have a sense that they belong to the same class. Learners may have to create their personal classroom when they work alone at home, in the office, or another computer-accessible space, but they retain a connection to the larger group.

You have a personal classroom space, too, but your role in building a classroom is especially important during synchronous activities. Although asynchronous communication should be used to give learners a sense of belonging to a class while they complete learning activities on their own, the synchronous activities give you that much more opportunity to pull the group together.

Your persona, as evidenced through asynchronous and synchronous messages, makes the class seem professional, yet friendly. Your online personality indicates how formal or informal the class will be, how approachable or remote you are from learners, and how seriously or frivolously you take the course materials—and the job of teaching. If you teach from home, you should develop a work space in which you are comfortable; reserve this space for your work. Keep all the information about the class close to your computer. You should act as professionally while you are working in this space as you do when you enter an on-site classroom or your office on campus. Getting into a professional state of mind helps you to build the learning community and to create a formal space and time for working online. Whether the program model you follow encourages learners to work mostly on their own or at least sometimes as part of a larger class, you can build a learning community each day through your teaching activities. You create the sense of classroom, even without a common building or location. You ensure that learners’ communication and learning activities are not completed in a vacuum, but that their work is just as valuable in an online class as it is in a class where learners physically see each other and others’ assignments.