designing for community: understanding sense of community in virtual learning environments

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Boyer, D. Matthewpresented 16 April 2009 at AERA 2009

Poster Session:Design Thinking: Across Formal and Informal Learning Environments

Designing for Community:

UnderstandingSense of Community in Virtual Learning Environments

As teachers increasingly go online to support their professional learning, they are met with a

wide array of opportunities for engaging in what researchers and developers have termed virtualcommunity. In 2004sDesigning for virtual communities in the service of learning(Barab et al.,

2004), as with other reports of research surrounding online communities, various authorsinvestigate what community means in virtual environments. Comparing these online groups to

physical-world communities of practice, researchers continue to explore the ways in whichvirtual environments can support professional learning communities.

What is not clear is just what community means for researchers, designers, and participants. This

paper begins to summarize various aspects of community that authors have previously identified,in an attempt to create a framework for understanding not only what community means in a

virtual learning environment, but also how designers who seek to build online community canapproach the creation of their online environments.

This framework supports understandingsense of community, an individual participants thoughts

and feelings about their identity and connection to the online group. While the broad termcommunity is discussed, the purpose of this paper is to focus on creating both conceptual and

operational descriptions of sense of community. Through an interpretation of current literature,as well as analysis of an online learning environment intentionally designed to support a sense of

community in participants, this research provides a design framework that both informs and isinformed by research, and suggests ideas for practical design applications.

I begin with an overview of several areas related to community in virtual learning environments,

specifically research around communities of practice, teacher professional development inlearning communities, and virtual communities. From this foundational information, I present a

framework to identify the aspects of a virtual learning community that contribute tounderstanding an individuals sense of community. I discuss this emerging framework as it is

informed by research, as it looks in practice, and as it may be intentionally designed.

Purpose

As is evidenced by scholarly investigations into online community from a variety of researchperspectives (Barab et al., 2001; Dede, 2004; Gray, 2004; Neff, 2002; Palinscar et al., 1998;

Preece, 2000; Riel & Polin, 2004; Schlager & Schank, 1997; Selwyn, 2000; Smith & Kollock,1999), we as researchers have been intrigued by the possibility of taking what we know about

physical world communities and using that knowledge to create virtual environments thatsupport similar types of connection and communication between community members. The

ability to facilitate organizations online has led to the use of virtual environments to supportprofessional learning, from virtual organizations like TappedIn (Schlageret al., 2002) and the

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Apple Learning Interchange, to online courses for graduate work or other ongoing professionaldevelopment.

The purpose of this research is to sift through the ever-increasing body of research on online

learning and virtual communities in order to identify the important characteristics for those

seeking to analyze, design, or construct virtual environments that support an individuals senseof community. This paper presents an important clarification: central to the creation of asustained, supportive community of practice, whether physical or virtual, is attention to a set of

issues related to developing a sense of community in individual participants. These issues arecombined in a research and design framework that can be used to inform ongoing research on

virtual learning environments as well as facilitate the development of future online projects.

Process

Before developing this framework, I began by examining foundational research on a variety ofareas related to online communities of practice for teacher professional development. Summative

information about these areas is presented in the Perspective section of this paper. From thisbackground information, I move to a discussion of the framework itself, presenting six aspects

that contribute to understanding sense of community.

To build this framework, I used existing research to inform the different aspects, along withinformation from an analysis of an online graduate course designed to support a sense of

community in individual participants. Through this two-pronged approach, I was able to refinemy observations of the virtual learning environment with research literature from previous

studies. The resulting framework is a conceptual overview, meant to assist researchers in theiranalysis and designers in their creation of virtual learning environments that seek to develop a

sense of community.

Perspective

To understand how an individuals sense of community can contribute to their successfulparticipation in virtual learning environments, it is necessary to reflect upon foundational

research into areas related to communities of practice and professional learning. The followingsection presents information on the areas of communities of practice, teacher professional

learning, and virtual communities. This foundational research helps to understand not simplywhat community means in a broader sense, but also why community can be such a powerful

concept when developing learning environments and activities.

Communities of Practice

Communities of practice have existed as long as man has created social structures aroundbuilding collective knowledge. From the time of apprenticeship-based guilds and communities

of artisans, there have existed groups of people seeking to engage in discourse around commonexperiences and share in the construction of new understanding toward collective goals. More

recently, industries and organizations have developed their own communities of practice, geared

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toward the development of communal understanding and the creation of new knowledge. Thesecommunities are pervasive to our culture, existing in endless iterations (Wenger et al., 2002).

These communities are also important to our continued expansion as a knowledge-based society,as groups come together to create a dynamic structure for investigation and creation. In these

communities, knowledge is not simply an information artifact, but rather a dynamic process of

co-creation where learning is a living process, socially constructed through discourse andsharing. At times, understanding is tacit to the group, existing as the underpinnings of thecommunitys creation and central to their ability to function. Other times, the knowledge created

becomes explicit, in that it is shared between members and possibly outside of the communityitself.

Communities of practice exist across many dimensions, including time, location, participants,

size and purpose. For example, a group of twenty teachers may come together for a five-dayprofessional development workshop at their school with the task of creating a scope and

sequence for a future unit of study. In another example, four architects situated in separate citiesaround the globe use communication technologies to complete a building design over a period of

months. These communities can continue past their current iterations or choose to dissolve oncetheir task is completed; the community of practice defines its own structure and sustainability.

In one model of communities of practice, there are three criteria for examining these

communities: domain, community and practice (Wenger et al., 2002). Domain refers to thecommon ground shared by the participants. Community involves the social interactions that

become the foundation for the construction of new knowledge. Practice includes severalvariables: framework, ideas, tools and information. Framework defines the component structures

for communication and sharing, while ideas are the concepts and topics for investigation. Toolscan be anything from communication technologies to the physical implements used to create and

display the information as artifacts.

Put another way, communities of practice involve the creation of shared knowledge and beliefs,while bringing together individual histories that intertwine interdependent participants involved

in a communal enterprise. The participants develop relationships that respect individualdifferences and viewpoints, but allow for everyone to interact within an ongoing and

reproducible endeavor (Barab et al., 2004).

A community of practice exists through ongoing interaction focused on the sharing ofinformation toward the social construction of new knowledge. Situated in practice, the members

engage with archival and current material while interacting with each other (Anderson et al.,2000). Thr