Strategies for Building Community among Learners in Online Courses
This article provides a classic example of reflective teaching practice--the author shares how they looked at student feedback from their courses, made thoughtful changes, and provides suggestions for other instructors.
My instructional decisions were the result of serious reflection; I was not happy with my course and wanted to make substantive changes before the second session. Though there were variations in the responses, the overall tone of the feedback was different in session two. While more than half of all comments from session one could be classified as negative or neutral, less than 10% of the responses in session two could be considered such. This is by no means a comprehensive or definitive list of strategies but rather a concrete example of teacher decision-making that can lead to improvements in student attitude and performance.