Module 3: Engaged Learning Communities (notes)

To mitigate the transactional distance.

I belong to different communities: discipline, school, department, the wider University community, other formal and informal communities.

’How we provide meaningful opportunities to develop and foster that sense of community needs to be considered as a key part of any educational design process.’

’Consider how ideas of community, particularly in higher education, are fueled by a shared set of values. Do these particular values of empathy, wonder, and openness resonate with your communities? With your discipline? With your teaching practices?

Intellectual pursuits, curiosity, not a money spinner!

Community, campus and cohort.

Community (Edinburgh), domain (translation studies) and practice (Msc and its various courses).

‘strong community has a positive impact on educational outcomes and that strong community has a social element to it.’

A mixture of formal and informal community activities

I think to achieve a sense of belonging we need to organise activities which are related to the learning, so formal things like discussion forms, weekly announcements and at the same time create spaces for the students to talk to one another without an explicit relation to the course. I like what someone said on the video: Two spaces: formal (weekly forums) and informal (for people just to say hi and say how excited they are, e.g. social forums and general discussion forums). Informal could be on FB, or forums on LEARN.
As for events, in the past we have organised a pub quizz related to translation theory and I think this could work well (if not better) online. Students should also be encouraged to organise their own events.

Create activities which makes students belong to Ed Uni, MSc in TS and each course. Quiz, forums, Ed Uni? How do you make students belong to Uni? Activities with other students outside of TS?

4.5 video:

Which of these approaches are appropriate to my discipline?
Which would force a redesign of my current teaching practices?

Giving space for people to connect, bring people together, being part of something.

Two spaces: formal (weekly forums) and informal (for people just to say hi and say how excited they are, e.g. social forums and general discussion forums). Informal could be on FB, or forums on LEARN.

Pictures on profiles, the same everywhere: sense of identity.

Non digital opportunities for people to meet, alumni events all around the world (not organised by us but by the university). Also students who are in the same regions, city. Would be difficult in China! Global Day organised by EUSA (photographs).

Activities before the start of teaching. Before Induction day.

Remove the hierarchy: what’s your favourite dessert. Making students comfortable around us and around one another.

Try not to overload, too many (duplicated) emails.