Building an on-line learning community

I began teaching University level courses on-line last Fall at Royal Roads University and what I experienced surprised me. My role significantly shifted from when I was teaching face-to-face as a Professor at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands. Prior to this on-line teaching experience, I held command of the learning environment with lectures, power point presentations and assigned readings. While I encouraged discussion in class, the feedback from students was generally directed towards me, the Professor. It rarely occurred when students would engage in dialogue amongst themselves. However, that is exactly what I'm trying to encourage in an on-line learning community. I want to create the conditions for student to student dialogue.

My role has shifted from the knowledge holder to the knowledge broker. One technique I use is the magic of appreciative inquiry to probe into my student's posts. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) re-frames how we think about problem solving. Rather than identify all the reasons why a certain idea won't work, AI uses the art of asking good questions to probe into what is working well in a system. Often used in the organizational development field, AI is a practice that amplifies the positive and re-engages dialogue in the creative possibilities. When people are energized in a dialogue about possibility, the level of creative thinking heightens and collaborative learning often occurs. Similarly, I've found that asking good questions in an on-line learning community can propel thinking into creative knowledge building. Hence, as a Professor, I'm no longer the knowledge holder, but one of many co-creators.