The Role of Learners and Instructors in Creating an Inclusive online Community

Introduction: the concept of community

Well-designed online communities make students the center of course attention and have curriculums designed to encourage peer-to-peer engagement through the help of online discussions, blogs, video conferencing, chatting, whiteboards, wikis, and other technology tools connecting participants 24/7 electronically regardless of geographical-physical boundaries (Conrad & Donaldson, 2011).  

To create an inclusive, effective online learning community, instructors must promote social and academic interaction among learners while influencing and motivating them to learn and solve problems independently.  Effective, inclusive online learning communities also enable learners to feel safe sharing their experiences, knowledge and ideas without fear of being judged.

This journal reflects on my perspectives of the importance of creating an effective online community with respect to experiential learning theory while focusing on the roles of the learner and instructor in building an inclusive community of learners through eLearning.

Instructors’ role in creating an inclusive online community

According to Bernard et al., (2012), in an online environment, instructors are involved in instructional design, provide feedback, facilitate learning, post course material/content, process assignments, assess and evaluate students’ work, support/motivate students by being present at all timed and encourage learners’ social and academic involvement.  To a certain extent, I argue that a truly effective online course requires more time and dedication, particularly on the part of instructors. As noted by Clark (2012), by including an on-going instructor presence, the course adds more responsibilities and workload to faculty even when the course is not instructor-centered or lecture-based.

Significant characteristics of instructors creating a truly effective, inclusive online community of learners are caring and nurturing. These attributes help empower instructors to make their online learning communities approachable by students, while also setting an example making clear the benefits of reaching out to support each other’s learning and broader human development using online communication tools and collaborative activities.

The learners’ role in creating an inclusive online community

In an instructor-facilitated environment, learners contribute constantly to knowledge building through interactions with peers, through engaging activities among online learners, and through self-directed study. Therefore, a successful online learning community requires an asynchronous environment where online learners are actively involved with their own learning, use computer technology to communicate with their peers and instructors, work on collaborative projects with their peers, and share knowledge and experience with each other in a supportive environment (Conrad & Donaldson, 2011). All of the later points take place when the instruction encourages collaboration and the acquisition of knowledge in creating an online learning community as emphasized by Conrad and Donaldson in chapter one of their book Engaging the Online Learner.

Given this, in an online community, learners should reflect on their own work while reflecting on their peers’ ideas and experiences to construct knowledge and generate critical thinking skills within the collaborative context. In this case, engaged learners play essential roles in building an effective online community as they fully involved and engaged in knowledge acquisition, and their interactions are the driving force behind learning.

The challenge of creating culturally inclusive online communities

Designing a culturally inclusive online community requires much care and consideration because values, beliefs and styles of teaching/learning differ widely from country to country. In this regard, Reeves & Reeves (1997) pose that great challenges may arise when the core pedagogical values in one culture are culturally inappropriate in another culture. For example, critical thinking is encouraged within many Canadian educational institutions, but this is not the case in societies run by authoritarian governments such as in Iran, where I was born and completed my elementary and high school education. Even today, students are not allowed to question or challenge an instructor and are punished up to including expulsion from school simply for being ‘critical thinkers’. 

Online courses reach out to local and international learners, and so instructors must accommodate cultural differences and be culturally sensitive to learners’ potentially very diverse values and customs in designing all aspects of their courses.  Although it makes sense to be culturally sensitive and respectful of all cultures, designing an effective, engaging, inclusive course for an international class is very challenging, especially when numerous international learners have been taught to view women as second class citizens.

Consider, for example, the case of York University sociology Professor J. Paul Greyson, who refused a male student’s request to avoid participating in a group project with female students on religious grounds, and the decision of the university administration to overrule Prof. Greyson’s decision. Their action to support sex-segregated learning alarmed me and forced me to think more about the challenges of implementing an inclusive community of online learners.

The moment this news came to my attention, I sided with Prof. Greyson because he understood that when a male student refuses to participate in a group project with women, that student is denying principles of gender equality and wants to impose his belief system that considers women either as a second class citizens or less than fully human in public life. Men sharing this student’s anti-women beliefs rule most Middle East countries and make life very difficult for women, and I was surprised when York University’s highest administrators accommodated the student’s exclusionary attitudes, saying it is the role of the professor to accommodate cultural differences. This leads me to believe that institutions need to guide instructors on how to design online courses which accommodate learners’ beliefs and values while not undermining gender equality which also fully respect individual rights guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Although course designs need to accommodate international learners’ beliefs and values, it should move beyond the narrow prescriptive of cultural boundaries. This means that the instruction design should implement multicultural values that are inclusive and meet the needs of a diverse learners’ community.  

It is beyond the scope of this paper to go further into this issue; however, this prepares me to be more thoughtful and collaborate with more experienced individual instructors when designing courses reaching out to the international community. 

Conclusion

As discussed earlier in this paper, eLearning is largely facilitated through the asynchronous model, and learners produce knowledge through peer engagement and collaborative work.  Therefore, when an instructor designs an online course, the focus should not be only on the creation of course content and material, but the instructional design should also be based on creating opportunities to empower learners to be critical thinkers, and to put them in charge of building knowledge and their own learning experiences. As stated by Conrad and Donaldson (2011), in a learner-centered community, the successful learners are those who become active partners in knowledge generation and play roles in making decisions about learning while being engaged throughout the course.

References

Bernard, R. M.; Abrami, P. C.; Lou, Y.; Borokhovski, E.; Wade, A.; Wozney, L. &  Huang, B. (2004). How does distance education compare with classroom                     instruction? A meta-analysis of the empirical literature. Review of Educational  Research, 74(3), 379-439. Retrieved on March 12, 2014 from http://education.indiana.edu/graduate/programs/hesa/iuspa/4-%20Student%20Growth%20in%20Asynchronous%20Online%20Environments%20Learning%20Styles%20and%20Cognitive%20Development.pdf

Clark, C. C. (2012). Student Growth in Asynchronous Online Environments: Learning Styles and Cognitive Development.   Retrieved on March 12, 2014 from http://education.indiana.edu/graduate/programs/hesa/iuspa/4-%20Student%20Growth%20in%20Asynchronous%20Online%20Environments%20Learning%20Styles%20and%20Cognitive%20Development.pdf

Conrad, R. M. & Donaldson, J. A. (2011). Peer Partnership and Team Activities. Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction. Jossey-Bass Wiley: San Francisco

Reeves, T., & Reeves, P. (1993). Effective dimensions of interactive learning on the World Wide Web. In B. Khan (Eds.), Web-based instruction (pp. 59-66). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: ­Educational Technology Publications.