Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace by Rena M. Palloff & Keith Pratt (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999, 240 pp., $29.95)
When the book review editor of the Quarterly Review of Distance Education invited me to write a review, she gave me list of books to choose from. The title of the book Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace immediately caught my attention because of my interest and involvement in Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) and in online learning communities.
The book is divided into two parts. Part One, “The Learning Community in Cyberspace,” lays the foundation for the authors’ distance learning framework and consists of five chapters. Part Two, “Building an Electronic Learning Community,” provides in six chapters, an experimental guide of creating an effective online community, and presents practical applications of the framework.
I found the book easy to read. Vignettes and examples (such as syllabi) in the book help readers easily comprehend concepts and techniques involved in online communities. Questions to consider in Part Two offer good guidance. Since 1994, I have been involved in CMC and have taught so far several online courses, each time trying out new strategies. I wish that I had read the book before delivering these online courses. Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace is definitely useful to faculty members who are planning to deliver online courses. It is also beneficial for faculty members, including me, who have been delivering Web-based courses. The book taught me new techniques that can make my courses better, and I will try them out in my upcoming teaching assignments.
The book also discusses issues related to non-faculty members such as administrators, instructional designers, developers, technical consultants, and other staff members. It helps them realize how they can assist faculty members in making the transition from the classroom to cyberspace smoothly. Offering online courses is not an individual project, but teamwork; it requires entire organizational or institutional collaboration. The authors noted that course evaluation formats of many institutions do not fit online courses. Having appropriate course evaluation requires support of college administrators and cooperation of staff members. In addition to people in academia, the book is also useful to group facilitators and to those who provide online training or facilitate online communication in corporate settings. Anyone who is engaged in online work can benefit from the book.
Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace is successful and informative because it is based on the authors’ experiences of being both students and instructors. The authors were students in a distance learning program in 1993. They encountered difficulties in working out differences and disagreements with other participants in their online community and noticed that many human elements were neglected. They later created an electronic seminar in which they explored the use of electronic communication in learning. They experienced several phases from which they generated attributes that were essential in developing and enriching online learning communities.
Chapter One, “When Teaching and Learning Leave the Classroom,” discusses the issues involved in teaching and learning when learning occurs in an online environment. One example, for instance, discusses students in cyberspace making the transition, taking new approaches, and learning new skills. I agree with the authors that we need to assist our students in making the transition. Having them construct their own Web pages or posting their pictures may help the transition. Further providing tips on how to become a successful online learner can be beneficial.
Chapter Two, “Defining and Redefining Community,” explains the importance of building an online community by differentiating a traditional model from one that leads to a successful electronic classroom. What desired outcomes indicate a successful electronic classroom? The authors stated “sharing of resources among students,” “collaborative learning evidenced by comments directed primarily student to student rather than student to instructor,” and “expressions of support and encouragement exchanged between students as well as willingness to critically evaluate the work of others.” (p. 32)
Chapter Three, “What We Know about Electronic Learning,” reviews crucial issues of an electronic classroom. Issues include
virtual versus human contact, connectedness, and coalescence,
responsibilities, rules, roles, norms, and participation in an online community,
psychological and spiritual issues, and
vulnerability, privacy, and ethics. Authentic dialogues elicited from online communities are included to illustrate the issues.
“Last semester I was buried in the students’ messages”; “It was just impossible for me to take care of so many students in my online courses” were often stated by online instructors and clearly reveal the struggles of the instructors. Faculty members as well as administrators will find Chapter Four, “Time and Group Size,” useful to resolve some issues related to time spent on an online course and number of students in such a course. Topics in Chapter Five, “Managing the Technology,” include the relationship of person-to-machine and technology as a facilitative tool, such as ease of use, visual appeal, and technological difficulties.
Chapter Six, “Making the Conversion from the Classroom to Cyberspace,” discusses how to make the conversion by assessing the roles of instructors and students. I found it helpful to identify the instructors as educational facilitator, community builder, administrator, and technical facilitator while learners are responsible for their knowledge generation, collaboration, and process management. To be successful in online courses, learners have to actively be engaged in their learning process.
Chapter Seven, “Building Foundation,” provides suggestions for creating an effective syllabus (e.g. establishing objectives, outcomes, and course guidelines) and for constructing the online course Website (e.g. welcome page, discussion forums, and announcements). An actual syllabus, examples of course guidelines, and guiding questions to assist in building an effective course syllabus are invaluable. Building an online course is very different from constructing a traditional class. Unfortunately many online instructors “believe that the online classroom is no different from the traditional one…” (p. xiv). I wonder whether this is just due to lack of awareness. I have seen faculty members scan pages of articles and upload numerous PowerPoint presentations onto an online course Website. For them, the difference between an online course and traditional one seems to be the location of the course materials. Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace can help instructors realize the core of an online course: online learning community.
Instead of spending time on uploading articles and PowerPoint slides, one should focus on rethinking the educational philosophy, instructional approaches, learning process, and roles of instructors and students, and further create an online environment promoting learning. Chapter Eight, “Promoting Collaborative Learning,” offers practical techniques to stimulate collaborative learning. Formulating a shared goal for learning, negotiating guidelines, encouraging expansive questioning, sharing responsibility for facilitation, and promoting feedback are reviewed. Implementing these techniques, we do not “teach” course content in our online courses as we do in a traditional classroom, but we participate in the community as an equal member. This type of delivery requires us to fundamentally change how we view education. The change and new delivery methods sometimes might make us feel alone, especially when we hear student comments like “The professor didn’t ‘teach’.” The authors’ observation that “the construction of a learning community, with the instructor participating as an equal member, is the key to a successful outcome.” (p. xvi) assures us that we are not alone in the journey.
Chapter Nine, “Transformative Learning,” describes a self-reflective process that occurs in online courses. It deals with learning about how we learn through the use of technology, learning about the technology itself, and learning about ourselves. I agree with the authors that transformative learning is an unanticipated result of an online learning process. Through the learning process, our students will unexpectedly learn about themselves as we, instructors, will learn about ourselves. Once one of my students said that she found herself very comfortable of participating in online community while she rarely spoke in class. She said, “This is related to how I grew up in my family. My father…” Another student stated that an online course helped him realize that he was a dependent learner. Since then, he has been tried to improve himself to become more independent.
Chapter Ten, “Evaluation,” reviews issues about evaluation, such as student performance (e.g. using the dialogue as a source of evaluation material, evaluating student assignments, and using collaborative assessment), course evaluation (e.g. elements of course evaluations in an online classroom and interpretation of the feedback), technology being used, and program evaluation. Chapter Eleven, “Lessons Learned and a Look Ahead,” summarizes the keys to success in distance learning (e.g. honesty, responsiveness, relevance, respect, openness, and empowerment) and the essence of distance learning: community. Unresolved issues and unanswered questions are raised at the end of the chapter.
Offering online courses is a current trend in higher education. Many of us are exploring various ways to enhance our student learning in online communities. In the midst of exploration, the book Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace provides us with a sound framework, practical techniques, authentic examples, and invaluable experiences. As the authors nicely summarize the online teaching experience: “We find that we are touched and moved by our students in every electronic seminar we conduct. We feel that we learn as much or more than they do. Not only are we helping to shape the creation of empowered, life-long learners, our participation as equal members of a group of learners supports us in our own quest for life-long learning” (p. 168), we will find offering online courses an invaluable experience.
