{"id":109,"date":"2012-06-25T05:00:01","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogsksbeedu.wpenginepowered.com\/ksonlinelearning\/?p=109"},"modified":"2012-05-30T18:19:07","modified_gmt":"2012-05-30T18:19:07","slug":"community-building-strategies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/2012\/06\/25\/community-building-strategies\/","title":{"rendered":"Community Building Strategies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Especially in the early weeks of your course, it\u2019s important to foster a feeling of community. You\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few simple ideas on how you can build community in your course.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Establish a Presence<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make sure to create a staff information page.\u00a0 This page should tell your students a little about you, how to contact you, and the best times to contact you.<\/li>\n<li>Respond to all emails &amp; calls in a timely manner<\/li>\n<li>Modeling \u2013 when appropriate jump in and join your students for an activity.\u00a0 The Discussion Board is a great place to interact with students &amp; you can model the way in which you\u2019d like them to respond to their peers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Be Inviting and Encouraging<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Post regular announcements with words of encouragement, task and due date reminders, interesting facts, fun events, new websites, etc.<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Encourage Socialization Among Students<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Create a \u201cStudent Lounge\u201d in your course.\u00a0 It can be a place where students can discuss items that aren\u2019t 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.\u00a0 Let your imagination go with this one.<\/li>\n<li>DL buddy activities are a good way for students to work with and get to know their classmates.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 As the course continues, successful groups can continue to meet to discuss assignments or for group activities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Highlight Achievements<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It\u2019s always nice to be recognized when you\u2019ve worked hard to accomplish something.\u00a0 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.<\/li>\n<li>If you\u2019d prefer not to single out a student, another idea could be to highlight exemplary work.\u00a0 Create a section in Blackboard that shares the creative, accurate, and imaginative work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>***Think about which of the strategies above you&#8217;d like to incorporate in your blended\/online learning course and share them with the group by adding a comment to the post.\u00a0 If you have any other ideas\/suggestions on building community in online courses, please add those too!<\/em>***<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Especially in the early weeks of your course, it\u2019s important to foster a feeling of community. You\u2019ll find that if you take the time to build community early in your course, students will be more motivated to be active and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/2012\/06\/25\/community-building-strategies\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":604,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49673],"tags":[49676,49677,49678,49674,49675],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online-pedagogy","tag-blended-learning","tag-community-building","tag-engagement-strategies","tag-online-learning","tag-online-pedagogy-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Community Building Strategies - Tri-Campus Blended Learning<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/2012\/06\/25\/community-building-strategies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Community Building Strategies - Tri-Campus Blended Learning\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Especially in the early weeks of your course, it\u2019s important to foster a feeling of community. You\u2019ll find that if you take the time to build community early in your course, students will be more motivated to be active and &hellip; Continue reading &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/2012\/06\/25\/community-building-strategies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Tri-Campus Blended Learning\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-25T05:00:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"kecua\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"kecua\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/2012\/06\/25\/community-building-strategies\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/2012\/06\/25\/community-building-strategies\/\",\"name\":\"Community Building Strategies - Tri-Campus Blended Learning\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-25T05:00:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/#\/schema\/person\/cbaabcce8ab889e394bbadd7e093b7a3\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/2012\/06\/25\/community-building-strategies\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/2012\/06\/25\/community-building-strategies\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/2012\/06\/25\/community-building-strategies\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Community Building Strategies\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/\",\"name\":\"Tri-Campus Blended Learning\",\"description\":\"A PLC for the KS community\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/#\/schema\/person\/cbaabcce8ab889e394bbadd7e093b7a3\",\"name\":\"kecua\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/19a0173053f8253087739ab19b7e9133868fb2c165562f8138509792bd7fe54c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/19a0173053f8253087739ab19b7e9133868fb2c165562f8138509792bd7fe54c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"kecua\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/author\/kecua\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Community Building Strategies - Tri-Campus Blended Learning","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.ksbe.edu\/ksonlinelearning\/2012\/06\/25\/community-building-strategies\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Community Building Strategies - Tri-Campus Blended Learning","og_description":"Especially in the early weeks of your course, it\u2019s important to foster a feeling of community. 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