The abundance of information we are confronted with in the digital age, the diminishing half-life of knowledge and the new possibilities to connect, communicate and collaborate have an impact on what we need to know and how we learn. While knowing something is less relevant, abilities to find, evaluate, and utilize sources of information are becoming more and more important. For this we not only use libraries, databases, and the World Wide Web, it is often other people who can help us find relevant sources of information. Therefore, we have to connect and collaborate, build up and curate a network of experts with shared interests. This is why learning in online communities is so important: it helps us to acquire the skills and abilities to communicate in a virtual environment, to negotiate and define rules for collaboration, to share ideas and deal with a diversity of opinions, to nurture and maintain a personal learning network and to contribute to a learning community.
The idea of learning in communities is reflected in a learning theory coined by George Siemens as ‘Connectivism’:
“The starting point of Connectivism is the individual. Personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into organizations and institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individual. This cycle of knowledge development (personal to network to organization) allows learners to remain current in their field through the connections they have formed.” (Siemens, 2005)
Six essential factors of a functioning learning community
Discussing learning in communities in our Open Networked Learning PBL group, the mechanics of this “cycle of knowledge development” have become very apparent to me. Over the past weeks, we have been able to form a learning community where individual knowledge and experiences can be shared, discussed, extended and fed back into our personal environment and network. We have identified six factors that are essential for a functioning learning community:
- Motivation – why do we want to learn together?
- Collaboration – what good collaborative practice?
- Engaged Learning – how can we best engage with each other and with content and materials?
- Skills – what skills are necessary to communicate, collaborate, cooperate and to build a learning community?
- Reflection – how can we become better aware of what we are doing, why, and how?
- Values – what are values we share and how do we deal with cultural differences?
More information on these six factors can be found on our learning-in-communities-padlet.
From collaboration to a learning community
While all of these factors are important, I found that the key one is a sense of community. This is especially true when learning online. The community strengthens motivation, appreciates contributions of its members, provides support, introduces different perspectives to a discussion, and encourages critical thinking and reflection – all of which contribute to quality learning (Brindley et al., 2009). These qualities have become more and more clear to me the longer our PBL group has been cooperating and growing together. There is a difference between mere collaboration – where individuals use a community or network for their own personal purposes – and a learning community. According to Brindley et al. (ibid.), collaborative learning happens when “knowledge is shared or transmitted among learners as they work towards common learning goals, for example, a shared understanding of the subject at hand or a solution to a problem”.
Brindley, J., Blaschke, L. M., & Walti, C. (2009). Creating Effective Collaborative Learning Groups in an Online Environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v10i3.675
Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: Learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1), January 2005. (Accessed: 2018-11-12) from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/index.htm