I have taught online at Northeastern University for almost 10 years and have taken 7 (including this class) courses in the OTL program. Through all that experience, I have been vaguely aware that optimal (to borrow a word from Drs. Khalsa and Hildreth) online teaching means setting up a supportive online community. This course is helping me focus on what that really means and its importance to online learning.
Based upon my experience, I see that the issue of class size, and hence learning community size, directly relates to the creation of an effective online community. My program has had several different policies over the years about the size of online classes. It seems as if they haven’t been able to make up their own minds about it. Early on classes were split when the number of students reached 20. Later the administration moved the number to 30. Lately they have left the classes with over 30 students as a single class but paid the instructor double the salary with the recommendation to break the class into smaller discussion groups.
This leads me to one possible area I would like to investigate for a group final paper; how does size influence an online learning community both positively and negatively? I would expect that the community size would impact some if not all of the cultural dimensions shown in the Week 2 lecture graphic as presented by Dr. Khalsa. For example, the amount and quality of interactions will be affected by the number of participants. If the number is not large enough, the participants might not have sufficiently different points of view or they may not be motivated to participate if they do not get much feedback. Only the other hand, a community with too many participants may have so many posts to read that members become overwhelmed and drop out or don’t feel like they can be recognized. Other issues would include the time involved, trust development and expression.
I do not have answers but I think this is a very important topic to explore. Online instructors need to understand the impact of class size upon online learning communities and how to compensate when classes are smaller than or larger than an optimal number.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You make a good point here. Something that I hadn't really thought of. I too have taken 7 courses in this program and have seen the differences in courses with lower vs. higher numbers of students. I personally like the intimacy of a smaller group. You get to know people better and as you said, the comments don't become overwhelming to read. I also think there are lots of options to explore with this topic.
ReplyDeleteI would concur that this is a great topic.
ReplyDeleteJanet, I love your topic and look forward to reading your midterm article. Size is absolutely important in so many ways - instructor involvement, student quality of interaction, group size, team size etc...
ReplyDeleteThanks for noting this and so glad to have you, with so much online experience, involved in our discussions - great addition for a varied perspective. ~ Datta Kaur