As online learning program rapidly expand, it is easy to forget how powerful communities of students can be to the higher education experience. Interviews with 30 Higher education vice presidents will be shared to share actionable plans and incentives to get university faculty and staff to work to build community for online students.
Online learning provides many benefits to distance students. There is also the potential for real isolation from any kind of learning community of fellow students and instructors, something that higher education has traditionally excelled at. This presentation will review practical outcomes of a doctoral project involving interviews with 30 higher education vice presidents about how to lead and create community in online degree programs today. The presentation will focus on incentives that have worked to increase interest, training and actions that lead to more effort to build support and community for online students across a university's range of employees.
Topics covered will include: incentives to encourage faculty and administrators to mindfully create opportunities for real community for online learners, review of successful training programs to create online community and pedagogical techniques that faculty and deans can use to increase student interaction and community. Examples will be shared of how university's can assess to see if mission, university identity and community are working effectively on campus.
Interviews were conducted in 2017 and 2018 with 30 US higher education vice presidents, and a sampling of related administrators, about how online administrators view the importance of community and what they do to help create it.