The Development of Virtual Learning Communities

Successful online instructors realize that building a sense of 'community' in the online classroom is necessary for successful learning outcomes… The development of community becomes a parallel stream to the content being explored' in online courses. " Woods and Ebersole, 2003 An intimate community of learners: Strange as it may sound, one instructor after another notes the surprisingly close relationships that they have developed with their online students. They say that it is common for participants in online courses to develop a strong sense of community that enhances the learning process. " Kassop, 2003 Becoming a learning community can be thought of as both a means and a goal for online classes; not all classes are able to achieve full development of this potential. This chapter explores research and theory concerned with social support for learning and the development of virtual learning communities in 2 SWAN AND SHEA online educational environments. This is an important topic both because of the continuing emphasis on social learning in general, and because of historical questions concerning the ability of online learning environments to support affective communication and the development of social relationships. In addition, research on online learning has consistently identified asynchronous course discussion as one of its more unique and promising features. This has led to considerable investigation into the phenomenon; in particular, into social interaction among discussion participants and its relationship to the development of learning communities. The chapter opens with a review of the major theoretical constructs in this area including social theories of learning, what has come to be known as " social presence " research, and the notion of virtual learning communities. The remainder of the chapter focuses on what we know and what we need to know; in particular, operationalizing the concept of learning communities, investigating the relationship between teaching presence and the development of a sense of community, and exploring the potential technological affordances of online environments for supporting the social construction of knowledge. That learning is in some fundamental sense social is generally accepted by most contemporary educational researchers and theorists 3 1999). Social learning theory therefore must be addressed in any discussion of learning online. Social learning theories maintain that learning is fundamentally social in nature; that it always involves interactions among people on some level, whether these be direct or mediated, or perhaps even remembered. Such theories are not new. Indeed, Plato maintained …