There is always a core group who seem to do everything, are always involved no matter what, and others who remain quietly on the periphery…sometimes popping up when the need arises and disappearing again. People come and go, and in some instances people are a captive audience at some time or other. I am captivated with this community, and thoroughly enjoying our progress through the course activities. For me a community is about having a common purpose or reason to meet.

The common reason for this community being formed is that we are part of a course with common goals, in terms of assessment, but also in the need to find out more about online communities. Although we all have differing reasons for participating and different expectations and because of this we will each take away different things from this experience.

Because we are an online community, we are using a range of online tools and methods to interact, and a range of activities to give us a reason to use them. We could have set up just a Blackboard discussion Board with 93 forums as they did in one iteration of this course, but we have chosen to give the class the opportunity to see how a variety of tools and strategies work – that way you can experience them and choose what will work for you in your teaching.

So I don\’t expect we will all feel comfortable, or warm and cozy in this community because it is challenging. But I hope that the strength of the community will be in helping each other overcome the challenges. For myself, it is a challenge because I have never used such a wide variety of tools and methods to teach an online course, and this is my first time teaching this course. I am loving it, and I don\’t particularly feel like I am teaching, rather I am feeling like a participant. There are so many interesting viewpoints and discussions going on. I was here because I was one of the facilitators, now I am here because I am finding it fascinating – Although I am spending far too much time participating.

I have also found out a lot about different online communities and some of the theoretical underpinnings by listening to the guest speakers. I am learning so much. I now know that online communities are not just about Gilly Salmon\’s five-step emoderating model or about asynchronous or synchronous discussions. They are so much more. You will see what I mean if you look at the list we compiled last night in the wiki – onlinecommunities. The new page we invite you all to contribute to along with your own discipline-specific page.

The overall aim of this course is to get everyone to the facilitator phase (development – stage five – relates to Gilly Salmon\’s five-stage model) of being in an online community and to get there there are other phases to pass through e.g. access to the tools and strategies (access – stage one) getting to know the community (socialisation – stage two), sharing knowledge and information (information sharing – stage three), creating knowledge and resources (knowledge building – stage four) .

Source: Wikipedia Community of Inquiry model – image by Matbury (2014)

The teacher is not only primarily responsible for designing learning activities and assessments but is also the person setting up and facilitating the learning environment (i.e., aspects in the categories: physical, psychological, resources and infrastructure) ((Knowles, Holton & Swanson, 2012).
Therefore, it makes sense that the teacher is the most important factor influencing student engagement.

• So how will you know if your students are engaged? 

This is not just about them paying attention and taking part in activities, as you will see by this list of attributes. Students are known to demonstrate particular characteristics (attributes) when engaged in their learning.

Attributes of student engagement 

1. Self-determination – take control, organising, setting goals and timelines, decide what they want to learn and when. 
2. Self-efficacy – belief in own abilities, persistence and prepared to take risks.
3. Autonomy – able to work alone, or with peers, make own decisions, independent of teacher.
4. Collaboration – work with others to create something, make decisions with peers. 
5. Peer interaction – connecting, communicating, sharing with peers. 
6. Problem-solving – sorting out challenges independent of teacher and asking for assistance, asking questions.
7. Immersion in learning tasks – interested, emotionally connected, curious, actively learning.
8. Curiosity and interest –  students are motivated to learn and seek out information.
9. Enjoyment – learning is regarded as fun.
10. Positive attitude to learning – self-organised and willing to participate in the learning process.
11. Satisfaction – happy with the learning experience.
12. Willingness to respond to challenges – enjoys being questioned, problem-solving and when expected to do better.

Wordle by Bronwyn Hegarty (2018)

A number of researchers have explored the components of engagement and how they influence students to take part in the learning process. These lists in this post include the main ideas I have gleaned from my reading and are also based on two seminal measures of engagement; the AUSSE (Australasian Survey of Student Engagment) and the SSES (Staff Survey of Student Engagement) (Richardson & Radloff, 2014).

This post is based on an article that is currently being prepared for publication, and a link to this will be provided (with all the references) once this is published.