{"id":784,"date":"2006-03-18T19:22:28","date_gmt":"2006-03-18T19:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/evaluation-of-learning-communities-in-an-online-master-s-degree-program\/"},"modified":"2026-11-11T22:05:04","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T03:05:04","slug":"evaluation-of-learning-communities-in-an-online-master-s-degree-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/evaluation-of-learning-communities-in-an-online-master-s-degree-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluation of &#8220;Learning Communities&#8221; in an Online Master&#8217;s Degree Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The linked article, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eric.ed.gov\/ERICDocs\/data\/ericdocs2\/content_storage_01\/0000000b\/80\/2b\/c9\/6b.pdf\">Discovering the Meaning of Community in an Online Master&#39;s Degree Program<\/a>, examines an <em><strong>online learning community<\/strong><\/em> from the perspective of adult learners in an online master&#39;s degree program in instructional design and technology (<em>sound familiar?<\/em>) at California State University &#8211; Fullerton.&nbsp; The paper was prepared by several instructors in the program and summarizes a survey of students conducted by the university.&nbsp; The purpose of the survey was to evaluate <strong><em>online learning community <\/em><\/strong>development within the program.<\/p>\n<p>The authors conclude that an online learning community creates &quot;foundations for transformative learning.&quot;&nbsp; Further, they cite prior findings that, &quot;strong feelings of community increase the flow of information among all learners, the availability of support, commitment to group goals, cooperation among members and satisfaction with group efforts&quot;.&nbsp; The authors report that the following program characteristics assist in online learning community development: <\/p>\n<p><em><strong>&#8211; Positive <\/strong><strong>peer interactions:&nbsp;<\/strong><\/em> The survey supported prior findings that student satisfaction &quot;is strongly related to the amount of active interaction with other learners&quot; and that &quot;small group activities can enhance learning motivation&quot;.&nbsp; <em>However, it is important to note that while peer interactions contributed to satisfaction, <strong>only 26% felt that the <u>most<\/u> meaningful learning in the program came through interactions with others (!!!)<\/strong> which supports other cited research.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>&#8211; Positive<\/strong><\/em> <em><strong>instructor interactions:<\/strong><\/em> The survey also supported prior research that positive teacher \/ student interactions positively influence 1) motivation, 2) course engagement and 3) learning achievement.&nbsp; The lack of teacher involvement had the opposite effect.&nbsp; Noted <em><strong>important instructional factors<\/strong><\/em> included teacher: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>responses to students&#39; contributions in discussion topics, <\/li>\n<li>constant presence on the discussion boards, <\/li>\n<li>supportive phone calls, <\/li>\n<li>good response time and <\/li>\n<li>exhibited &quot;thoughtfulness and caring&quot;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>&#8211; Adopting constructivists approaches to teaching and learning: <\/strong><\/em>The authors highlight the distinction between&nbsp; a &quot;teaching&quot; curriculum and a &quot;learning&quot; curriculum (their objective) in which &quot;knowledge is co-created by members of the learning community, with each person contributing his or her additional resources to the curriculum of the course.&quot;&nbsp; <em>Say it together now, &quot;social constructivists&quot;!&nbsp; <\/em>The results of the survey indicate that 86% felt they engaged in constructivist learning activities and that the interactions were beneficial to their learning.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><br \/>&#8211; Cognitive growth<\/strong><strong> through effectively facilitated critical discourse: <\/strong><\/em>80% agreed that online discussions challenged them to think critically and provided a &quot;safe&quot; venue to express ideas.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>&#8211; Accessibility and reliability of <\/strong><strong>web-based technologies: <\/strong><\/em>Not real surprisingly, the study validated that technical difficulties diminished the &quot;sense of community&quot;.&nbsp; However, the variety and selection of the appropriate online tools (discussion boards, e-mail, etc)&nbsp; were shown to be important to students&#39; success.<br \/><em><strong><br \/><\/strong><\/em><em><strong>&#8211; I<\/strong><\/em><em><strong>nstitutional collaboration: <\/strong><\/em>This section of the survey addressed how the university &quot;support&quot; functions viewed the online learning community.&nbsp; While all agreed they &quot;contributed to the development of the online learning community&quot;, only 54 strongly agreed or agreed that the online community as an extension of the campus community!&nbsp; <em>Coincidentally, I just received an &quot;invitation&quot; to an interesting on campus seminar some hundreds of miles away that would not be made available to distance students \ud83d\ude41<\/em><br \/><em><strong><br \/><\/strong><\/em><em><strong>&#8211; Members&#39; prior technological proficiency:&nbsp;<\/strong><\/em> Students in the program &quot;recognized and valued&quot; each member&#39;s experience and contribution within the community.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>My response as a student:<\/strong><\/em> As a student in a similar program, I agree with the major findings of this student survey.&nbsp; I agree with the importance of creating a sense of community within an online learning setting.&nbsp; The community (peer, teacher, institution) provides invaluable steering, insight, motivation and new ideas for me to ponder.&nbsp; Online learning can be a very lonely place . . . hello, hello . . . is anyone out there and the learning community can help you feel connected. Working for hours on the computer, I often think of the old &quot;if a tree falls&quot; story . . . I&#39;m working away, but is anyone out there to hear me (validate?) my work . . . However, as I have been reminded elsewhere this semester, does it matter to my education if they are or not?&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Yet, as the students in the survey noted, collaboration does not provide my primary source of &quot;meaningful learning&quot;.&nbsp; While I truly benefit from the constructive feedback of my peers and I learn a tremendous amount from reading their work, collaboration has a downside, too.&nbsp; Beyond the headache of dealing with schedule coordination, collaboration on some projects leaves me feeling educationally short-changed.&nbsp; I sometimes feel I miss pieces of the puzzle when I am in a jointly collaborating on assignments.&nbsp; While teamwork and project management skills can be gained in a collaborative environment (don&#39;t adults get enough of that practice at work?), I feel that attaining such experience can stand in the way of learning.&nbsp; I learn the most when I think things through (construct) on my own.&nbsp; Granted, in life most &quot;projects&quot; are usually best done when tasks are shared and delegated.&nbsp; However, I don&#39;t view learning in the same way as completing a &quot;project&quot;.&nbsp; Unlike a project, my education is not something that needs to &quot;get done&quot; in a speedy and efficient manner.&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Finally, I found the the comments on the connection with the &quot;institution&quot; and the accessibility of the web-based technologies to ring true, as well.&nbsp; While the technology does not make the &quot;education&quot;, it certainly is a primary facilitator.&nbsp; If the system is down, you can&#39;t get to your learning community or most of your resources or materials.&nbsp; If the system is poorly designed, you can&#39;t find things and time and opportunities are wasted.&nbsp; In an online setting, you must not only rely on technology to facilitate your education, but to also provide a connection to the institution.&nbsp; It is amazing how many things you take for granted in a f2f learning setting, such as using the library, getting a student ID card and attending ad hoc seminars with fellow students and professions. Also, when your only interaction with the institution is mediated by a piece of technology, you must work within the confines of the system&#39;s capabilities to get and stay connected with information gatekeepers and the resources they control. &nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The linked article, Discovering the Meaning of Community in an Online Master&#39;s Degree Program, examines an online learning community from the perspective of adult learners in an online master&#39;s degree program in instructional design and technology (sound familiar?) at California State University &#8211; Fullerton.&nbsp; The paper was prepared by several instructors in the program and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[194,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-iu-ist-p540"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3235,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/3235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}