Chapter 5: Physically Distant But Socially Connected: Building Community in Large Online or Blended Courses

Having a sense of community and connectedness to others is key to a learner’s success and resilience in any course. This becomes particularly critical in large online courses where it is very easy to feel a sense of isolation from your peers and instructor due to the nature of the modality and the instructor’s time and effort demands when handling a larger number of students. In this chapter, we utilize the frameworks of community of inquiry (Garrison et al., 2000) and community of trust (Palmer, 2005) to break down the idea of community into its key components. Further, we provide practical, evidence-based examples that can help faculty build a learning community in their large online classes.