RSA 3: Interrogating Students’ Perceptions of their Online Learning Experiences

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One of the most important aspects of teaching, learning, and sharing online is building a community.  Palloff and Pratt (2007) emphasize this by noting that “the learning community in an online course allows for mutual exploration of ideas, a safe place to reflect on and develop those ideas, and a collaborative, supportive approach to academic work” (p. 26).  The formation of a learning community represents a critical foundation on which can be built a powerful online learning experience.  It addresses the “human needs” of everyone involved in an online experience (Palloff & Pratt, 2007).

As the formation of a strong community is necessary for successful online learning (Palloff & Pratt, 2007), the question of how to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses that learning community is a valid one.  In his research, Phelan (2012) adapted Brookfield’s (2009) “critical incident questionnaire” (CIQ) to assess the development of learning communities among adult learners participating in online courses.  Phelan (2012) found that not only did using the CIQ weekly allow the facilitator to improve the effectiveness of the course, but that the frequent, critical communication helped to “foster students’ sense of belonging to a learning community in the online space” (p. 34).

While communication between student and teacher in the online classroom is frequent, it is often content-focused.  Phelan’s (2012) experience suggests that allowing students to interact on a regular basis with the instructor regarding their experiences in the online classroom “may facilitate students’ capacity to conceptualize and value learning as an interactive activity” (p. 41).  This addresses one of the fundamental concerns of online learning, that in the absence of a strong learning community, learners may experience feelings of isolation and disconnectedness.  Improving student-teacher communication may help to eliminate those negative feelings, which in turn strengthens the online learning community and improves the likelihood of classroom success.

Brookfield, S. D.  (2009).  The classroom critical incident questionnaire.  Retrieved from

http://www.stephenbrookfield.com/Dr._Stephen_D._Brookfield/Critical_Incident_Questi

onnaire_files/CIQ.pdf

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K.  (2007).  Building online learning communities: Effective strategies

for the virtual classroom (2nd ed.).  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Phelan, L.  (2012).  Interrogating students’ perceptions of their online learning experiences with

Brookfield’s critical incident questionnaire.  Distance Education, 33(1). 31-44.