EMT1-1.1
EMT 1 Assessment 1 Part 1
word count: 795
My view on the nature of a learning community.
My view:
A learning community is a group with a shared interest who have acted upon a desire to learn more and help others learn more. They interact collaboratively through different learning activities to share information, resources and ideas around their topic in order to facilitate group and individual learning.
A true learning community is representative of unselfish, collective learning as opposed to individual, secretive learning. There is no single ‘teacher’ but instead the members contribute to the learning of the community. The knowledge is not hidden, but shared, creating a knowledge base for the community to build upon.
This supportive environment, combined with the group’s social interaction, creates a strong sense of ownership and commitment to learning in the community.
How I came to this viewpoint:
After exploring discussions and opinions of classmates, it was clear a community is a group with something (geography, interests) in common. Wikipedia explains that when the group actively interacts around their commonality, learning from each, the community becomes a learning community.
Is this sufficient to explain the nature of a learning community? I decided to explore thinking on this matter chronologically to determine how this definition in Wikipedia had been arrived at.
Some of the early definitions of a learning community focus on structure as a key element. Gabelnick et al (1990) explains that thematically structuring the curriculum creates greater coherence and increased intellectual interaction compared to individual focused learning. This is a turning point where it is determined that to create this more intellectually stimulating environment, there must be a shared space where subject matter is integrated with social interactions. This definition is broadened by Smith (1993) who points out that learning communities involve change not just in structure but in process and the way people experience the learning process.
Matthews et al (1996) starts to move more towards the idea that community is not just for facilitating academic discussion, but from a social perspective participation in a learning community helps students feel comfortable, make friends, and develop a support network.
Roth and Lee (2006) theorize that learning communities are motivated by a desire to contribute to society. This viewpoint is supported by Gannon-Leary and Fountainha (2007) who explain that resource sharing not only improves participants’ knowledge but adds to the domain’s knowledge base.
Description of the nature and focus of the selected community.
The community I have chosen is a community of PHP programmers (http://www.phpfreaks.com/) with a tagline ‘PHP Freaks, Get Addicted’. The description: ”A community designed to assist developers with PHP and MySQL related information. Includes tips, tutorials, forums, articles, code examples and manuals.” This is a group of coders who have a clear focus on learning all about PHP coding.
How I recognized this e-community as a learning community.
I first examined the group against the definition I had developed.
They have a shared interest, PHP. There is a large amount of collaborative interaction; without this action taking place, it would not be a learning community. There are shared learning activities such as support forums, member created tutorials, posted articles, discussions on coding – in short they are passionate about their subject, eager to share their knowledge, to learn from others and to help others. This has resulted in the creation of a huge knowledge base with a variety of different ways members can interact and contribute. There is a supportive environment (including a calendar that shows all members’ birthdays!) and social interaction (a general chat area) as well as academic discussion.
I also measured my community against Brower’s (1998) guidelines. Yes my group has a strong sense of identity (they revel in their geekiness). Yes they have provided a supportive space for people to engage in transformative learning activities as well as social interactions. Yes it is large enough to accomplish its goals but not so unwieldy that members are lost in its depths.
Why this community might be of value to my experiences in this subject.
One of the lessons I have learnt is that active participation gives much greater insights into understanding than observation. When reading about different frameworks for examining learning communities, having an actual e-learning community to analyze using this information will be invaluable. It will also be interesting to see the community from the dual perspective of learner and researcher.
My expectations as a learner/participant in the community.
My expectations are that I will develop a greater understanding of a learning community and e-learning while developing my PHP coding skills through the tutorials, articles and forums. I expect to find help as I start to code a database project and that I will be inspired by discussions with like minds. I also expect I shall become a bit of a PHP freak…….
References
19 March 2008, Online Learning Community, Wikipedia, viewed 21 March 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_community
Brower, A.M. & Dettinger, K. 1998, ‘What is a learning community? Towards a comprehensive model’, About Campus, (Nov/Dec), pp. 15-21.
Gabelnick, F., MacGregor, J., Matthews, R., Smith, B.L. 1990 ‘Learning Communities: Creating Connections Among Students, Faculty, and Disciplines’, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 41.
Gannon-Leary, P.M. & Fontainha, E. 26 September 2007, ‘Communities of Practice and virtual learning communities: benefits, barriers and success factors’, ELearning Papers, viewed 24 March 2008, http://www.elearningpapers.eu/index.php?page=doc&vol=5&doc_id=10219&doclng=6
Matthews, R., Smith, Lee B. 1996, ‘Learning communities: A Structure for Educational Coherence,’ Liberal Education, vol. 82, no. 3, pp. 4-9.
Roth, W-M. & Lee, Y-J. 2006, ‘Contradictions in theorising and implementing communities in education’, Educational Research Review, vol 1, no. 1, pp. 27-40.
Smith, B. L. 1993, ‘Taking Structure Seriously: The Learning Community Model.’ Liberal Education, vol. 77, no. 2, pp. 42-48.
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