Community Building Strategies

Especially in the early weeks of your course, it’s important to foster a feeling of community. You’ll find that if you take the time to build community early in your course, students will be more motivated to be active and engaged in your course in subsequent months.

Here are a few simple ideas on how you can build community in your course.

Establish a Presence

  • Make sure to create a staff information page.  This page should tell your students a little about you, how to contact you, and the best times to contact you.
  • Respond to all emails & calls in a timely manner
  • Modeling – when appropriate jump in and join your students for an activity.  The Discussion Board is a great place to interact with students & you can model the way in which you’d like them to respond to their peers.

Be Inviting and Encouraging

  • Post regular announcements with words of encouragement, task and due date reminders, interesting facts, fun events, new websites, etc.
  • On occasion you may want to send important course reminders to your students via email, or words of encouragement or congratulations on work well done.

Encourage Socialization Among Students

  • Create a “Student Lounge” in your course.  It can be a place where students can discuss items that aren’t related to the curriculum (DB forum or chatroom), a place where you showcase student work, post interesting finds that may or may not be related to class work, etc.  Let your imagination go with this one.
  • DL buddy activities are a good way for students to work with and get to know their classmates.  At the start of the semester you might consider having your students do an online icebreaker activity that breaks them up into groups or buddies to get to know a few of their classmates better.  As the course continues, successful groups can continue to meet to discuss assignments or for group activities.

Highlight Achievements

  • It’s always nice to be recognized when you’ve worked hard to accomplish something.  Take the time to recognize the students in your course that put a little extra effort into a project or assignment by creating a Student of the week/month announcement to highlight their hard work.
  • If you’d prefer not to single out a student, another idea could be to highlight exemplary work.  Create a section in Blackboard that shares the creative, accurate, and imaginative work.

***Think about which of the strategies above you’d like to incorporate in your blended/online learning course and share them with the group by adding a comment to the post.  If you have any other ideas/suggestions on building community in online courses, please add those too!***

Welcome to the Tri-Campus Blended Learning Project PLN

Aloha and welcome to the Professional Learning Network for Tri-Campus Blended Learning Project!

What Is This Thing Called PLN You Speak of?

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This Professional Learning Network (PLN) is an essential part of the training process for anyone involved in blended learning here at Kamehameha Schools. Rather than asking faculty and staff to engage in a one-sided, direct instruction type of training where participants are simply told what they should know and do, this PLN hopes to foster more connections within our own group of KS colleagues. The PLN’s overall purpose is to grow our collective knowledge by creating a space where we can share insights, ideas, and resources and learn from each other. As you progress through this training process, remember that we each have our own unique and valuable perspectives, so please a’o aku, a’o mai.

Why Are We Doing the PLN Now?

With the pilot course for the Tri-Campus Blended Learning Project just months away from implementation, the summer months offer a perfect opportunity to deepen our understanding of blended and online instruction, improve our teaching in this environment, and learn where to go for support when we need it. Through participation in this Professional Learning Network, we will gain the basic knowledge, skills, and best practices necessary to begin teaching in the blended environment. We will also learn the pedagogical theory behind successful blended instruction and get tips on how to request technical support if we ever get stuck.

So What Do We Have to Do Already?

The Tri-Campus Blended Learning Project Professional Learning Network is designed to be as simple to use as possible. In short, all we have to do is check in with the PLN once or twice a week to see what people are sharing. About once a week, there will be a new post published about some aspect of blended in online learning. Participants are expected to digest each post and any links or resources that go along with it. After some reflection, each participant will submit their own post with their thoughts and share any of their own resources related to this topic. If you are stuck on what to do or what to post, check the resource section of the PLN for helpful checklists for instructors and administrators and rubrics with guidelines for excellent submissions. During all this connecting, contributing, and collaborating on blended and online learning takes place, the PLN participants are also encourage to share their lesson plans for the coming school year.

Ready to Get Started?

Now that we know what a PLN is and what this one is for, let’s dive right in and submit our first post! Since we are only just beginning, stick to the basics with the first submission. Introduce yourself to the rest of the PLN, and let us know at least three of your goals for teaching in the online and blended environment. To help kick start your thinking, check out this rubric containing some good topics and questions for goal-setting.

After you post, please be sure to check back and reply to some other posts. Remember our Professional Learning Network is only as good as we make it!