2.3 Content

2.3 Content and Rituals

The word "content" should be here disambiguated (as the word has found increased prevalence lately) primarily as any written or shared message, artifact, or symbol used as a tool for communication. It is in this sense that Community Canvas Project seems to use the word. Communities create, share, and consume many forms of content, and most communities use content - including that of their members - as an essential tool to curate and improve the member experience.

In an online course community, content created, curated, or gathered by the members creates value alongside course content. For instance, the most common form of content generated by members in an online course is probably responses to asynchronous discussion prompts. In this sense, we may think of content as one visible manifestation of the knowledge creation process in a community of practice. In a second, more connectivist sense, we can think of content as the artifacts created by connections between individuals in a digital network. This looser category of artifacts could conceivably take the form of links to articles or videos that a member shares in an informal Slack channel or a write-up of one's experiences in an affinity group. Although working with these types of content may be different, it positively affects the community in most senses.

A community can also be centered in its content. Stories about the course community - its origins, values, and experience of being involved in it - can inspire members, former members, and non-members alike. Although the stories are quite personal, they also involve a shared element of being located in the community. They create a particular type of value of social value or capital.

The Community Canvas Project lists the following other types of value created by content:

Exposure to peers: featured members receive exposure among a trusted group of peers with their ideas, projects, lives.

Inspiration by peers: Members appreciate the community more because they are inspired by other people who are part of the same community.

Inspiration by activity level: Members appreciate the community more, because they see how much is happening within the organization.

Intimacy: Members feel closer to each other, due to learning personal, behind-the-scenes stories about each other.

Learning: members learn from the experiences, stories or best practice of other members or other geographical hubs within the community.

Collaboration potential: members identify an opportunity to collaborate thanks to a story about another member.

Pride: members feel a stronger sense of pride to be part of the community thanks to the kind of stories that are told about the community itself.

Cross-pollination: members are more likely to connect with a member from a very different geographical area, industry, or background.

Non-hub engagement: members feel a part of the community, even though they are geographically not in one of the hubs of the community with a critical mass of people.

We can see that all these contact forms involve some meaningfulness, trust, or intimacy created in one or more members' connection. Forms of asynchronous content are also a form of associational life and a good way for members to get to know one another.

Asynchronous Content - Challenges and Affordances

However, just as "putting learners together does not guarantee Collaborative Learning," exposing members to other members' content does not guarantee that it will be a valuable experience.

Students in HPL 2020 had this to say about the YellowDig discussion boards and prompts:

"There was a lot of pushback on the discussion board last summer...from my peers, I heard [complaints] about having to comment on other people's posts and stuff. And there's just [a perception that] I have to comment on other people's posts. But who is that for? Are they even going to read it? Is that even going to be meaningful to the person to whom I'm commenting? Or is it just for me?"

"I would read the discussion board, but I didn't have a face to attach to what was being said, I [only] had a name...and so they're saying a lot of things and I'm learning a lot from their experiences. But if I go into a class, I have no clue if that's the person. I was once telling a story to someone, and they said, 'Oh, yeah, that was my blog post on HPL.' And like, I had no clue."

"It's really interesting hearing about people's backgrounds and stuff. I think the pushback is [that] you spend a lot of time writing."

Although asynchronous interactions have been the standard in many online and online course communities since the advent of the Internet, on discussion boards, it can be difficult (and time-consuming) to build rapport, get to know other members, and communicate interpersonally. This suggests that we temper our expectations for how much community can be onboarded or initiated via asynchronous text and question how much “social presence” students absorb from these tools. It also means we must take care either to design experiences to increase meaningful interaction between students or to create opportunities for students to initiate meaningful interactions independently.

We also need to leverage synchronous interaction where it is appropriate. As Sobko et al. find, "synchronicity is not needed to sustain all online collaborations...however, in our study, video-conferencing played a key role in facilitating rich student dialogue and iterative design. We advocate for students to have the opportunity to meet face-to-face in virtual spaces to share perceptions, thoughts, and emotions, and to design/create together in real time." (Sobko et al., 2014)

Although synchronous may be best for emotional and real-time interaction and ideation, asynchronous also offers many advantages for interaction. Increased flexibility and organization of users’ interactions promote affinity-based group behavior and introduce additional opportunities for members to share informal content such as information and expertise. Another primary benefit of asynchronous communication is durability. “Recognition and reinforcement online...are more tangible and more durable than onsite. A written response may ultimately provide more reinforcement than a nod of the head.” (Major, 2015) Asynchronous discussions can also allow users more time to reflect, think, and present their points. Benefits students cited in online discussions include "extended time to reflect on and structure their thoughts before communicating the ideas; more time to check course readings or other sources of information; more in-depth discussion than in-class discussion would permit; access to different perspectives on the same issue." (Pena-Shaff et al., 2005)

Finally, in the interest of demonstrating mastery, there are many options for structuring users’ contributions to the course community. Instead of just discussion boards, students can create online blogs, journals, and portfolios that elevate the level of asynchronous interaction to a more creative form. As in Bloom’s Taxonomy, students might graduate from mere more analytic and evaluator roles into a more creative role in the community consistent with the latter steps of Lave and Wenger's legitimate peripheral participation process. Particularly in reflections and stories, user content can promote a shared sense of belonging and trust throughout the course.

Scale

We must also consider scale, which also plays into the success or failure of online discussions. Small groups may be the most effective size for synchronous meetings, but what of large groups?

"At the beginning [of HPL] we were all supposed to post something about ourselves in the discussion forum, and then we could respond to each other. But it was over 400 students. And so I'm posting and responding to people. And then I get put in a different group than them and never have any connection on a discussion for him to them again, because you move to like a more specific discussion board. And so it's like, I felt like those beginning moves that I had made to try to connect were pointless after that...I would say right from the beginning, maybe discussion forums just are with your section, or maybe just share with one or two other sections, not with everyone."

Huge discussions can lead to exciting cross-pollination, but also entropy. Students might feel disconnected in a massive group, unable to keep up with all the different members, or feel that the exercise is protracted because other students may not be reading their posts. TF groups of 18 - small compared to the overall class, but a relatively large group to socialize in - may result in a few close friendships but could also lead to intimidation.

We might ask if our opportunities for introduction require a disproportionate amount of effort in relation to the benefits and effects we hope they impart on students and community. For instance, students don't want to spend a long time writing an introductory post if it will simply get lost amid 400 others. However, we don't want to lose our opportunity for cross-pollination in a larger group.

How might the lift of responses in large spaces be decreased, lowering the risk that their energy or time investment is disproportionate to their effect? Should discussion posts be limited to smaller groups for some questions and not others? Should there be a small discussion post group members to which members are assigned for certain discussion prompts, which take the form of more intimate journals or self-reflections to be shared with the small group?

Because community forms organically, we also need to concentrate on creating general structures and top-down encouragement and supports for students to explore and orient themselves as much as possible. Instructors should emphasis that study pods, partners, affinity groups, and other member-initiated groups are important for strengthening the community and ensuring that everyone has a positive experience.

Andragogic Shifts

We must also consider the pedagogy we employ when offering discussion prompts, in which a shift is necessary to facilitate a culture of inquiry. These issues "include considering the epistemic order of classrooms (Ruthven and Hofmann, 2016); for example, is it the teacher or student who now initiates? Is it the teacher or student who now validates ideas?" The flow of information is in a network or community of practice is ultimately more flexible. As Gauthier identifies, "If learning is assumed to be emergent from individual and social processes in the classroom then it implies that instructional processes that provoke learning have to be somewhat organic as well." (Gauthier, 2016) How, too, does this relate to our goals for student agency? Is the role of the students merely to choose between options given by the instructor? What if they do not, for instance, like the topic for consideration? What if they prefer to ask a different question about the topic or apply a different lens?

In theory, students should have the freedom to decide this, although it appears difficult in practice. It prods us to examine our discussion-post creation process. HGSE's 2nd goal is Collaborating on Questions that Matter. Who decides what matters? Should we take for granted that content experts will be serving the best or most relevant questions about the content? That may not be the surest way to ensure that content is reflective of group diversity. Because HPL members are co-creators in the community, and discussion posts are among the weaker forms of content, inviting them into co-ownership of the discussion seems like a practical proposition. Here what HPL could use is either an alternative discussion post each week where students can ask their own questions about the content to classmates, provided it is related academically. A larger-lift solution would be to canvas the questions for the discussion. This solution could be accomplished either by asking topics of students' interest at the beginning of the semester and jigsawing discussion responses or maybe by running the discussion a week behind the course content so that students' TF groups might have time to form questions. Alternately, questions might be posted in advance so that students can reference and either request a different question or an alteration.

How does the community treat informal content, such as posts on a Slack community? The question is also to be dealt with briefly - to what degree faculty should participate in the Slack channel.

Community of Practice

Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder offer us seven principles for the design of a community of practice:

1. Design for Evolution

2. Open dialogue between inside and outside perspectives

3. Invite different levels of participation

4. Develop both private and public community spaces to network and share information

5. Focus on value

6. Combine familiarity and excitement

7. Create a rhythm for the community. (Wenger et al., 2010)

Certain types of community content create deeper bonds among its members. These include responding to one another, participating in peer evaluations, and reflecting on course content and their own experience (the "outside" and "inside" perspectives, respectively).

Rituals and Traditions

“As the saying goes, there is only a choice between tradition and bad tradition. Traditions will come up naturally, so a community ideally sets them consciously. Thoughtful communities design these rituals with the community’s purpose and values in mind, initiate them from the top, and keep insisting on them until the members naturally enact them themselves.”

-Community Canvas Framework

Rituals and traditions are recurring actions that tend to be more symbolic and personal than functional. They add more profound meaning and significance to the actions of the community.

According to CCP, rituals and traditions within a community fall roughly into three categories

• Rituals that exist to continuously strengthen the bonds among members.

• Rituals that exist to embody the community’s collective values

• Rituals that mark milestones in the membership experience

Like language and content, rituals and symbolism can create tangible embodiments of the community’s values, especially in events. Rituals can also signify various milestones in the stages of membership, namely the beginning or initiation, some growth in the community, and the ending. Rituals can also conceivably take any form of content the course that has symbolic meaning. For instance, the Module 6 peer review project has a ceremonial significance. It could be viewed as a ritual that signifies a members’ passage from a member receiving mentorship to a member giving mentorship (particularly during the peer reviewer experience).

Although these rituals also have the effect of bonding members, there are also more informal events or rituals that may have more roots in deepening the social bond among members (imagine a weekly group “Happy Hour” or “Dance Party”). Including unstructured or unfocused opportunities for students to associate - such as a virtual "Student Lounge" Zoom room with multiple breakout rooms, where participants could drop in at any hour of the day - sends the message that these type of social connections are valuable as an ends in themself, not merely as a means.

Lastly, we can envision some rituals which exist to embody the community's values. What are some ways that the community can leverage social support to embody student agency or equity? Events can address existing concerns or challenges in the course. Commiseration/bonding over dealing with difficult questions about school is an activity known to bond members of online courses. A ritual that embodies supporting and being supported by the “community of practice” could involve students attending a bi-weekly meeting to discuss challenges and difficulties they are facing and discuss possibilities for helping one another face them. People also have the benefit of learning how others are adapting to challenges that maybe they are just now facing or identifying. This leverages community to support equity, enhance the onboarding process, and share information and expertise across the cohort. As one HPL alum identifies, “[Students are thinking about] course previews, financial aid, who’s my adviser? And people are worried about getting internships. So those are just some very real Office of Student Affairs concerns that students have. If all of that comes in one package, all those things are what students are trying to navigate at that time. While trying to do an asynchronous course online."

Citations:

Gauthier, L. (2016). Redesigning for student success: Cultivating communities of practice in a higher education classroom. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16(2), 1-13. doi:10.14434/josotl.v16i2.19196

Hofmann, R., and Ruthven, K. (2018) Operational, interpersonal, discussional and ideational dimensions of classroom norms for dialogic practice in school mathematics. British Educational Research Journal Vol. 44, doi.org/10.1002/berj.3444

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching Online: A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press., doi:10.1353/book.38784.

Pena-Shaff, J., Altman, W., and Stephenson, H. (2005) Asynchronous Online Discussions as a Tool for Learning: Students' Attitudes, Expectations, and Perceptions. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, Vol. 16

Sobko S., Unadkat D., Adams J., & Hull G. (2020). Learning through collaboration: A networked approach to online pedagogy. E-Learning and Digital Media17(1): 36-55. doi:10.1177/2042753019882562

Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2010). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.