Community Building

Creating a supportive community during online teaching and learning is key to helping students succeed. It is important to create opportunities for participation and engagement, and create spaces for students to actively explore their learning. Please note that the points below are suggestions and should not be taken as prescriptions. In addition, some links listed below link to external sites that will incur data charges. 

Tips:

• Be available in Forums, Chat Rooms and WhatsApp groups during your consultation hours so that students can see you online.  
• Create a welcoming and encouraging space by commenting constructively in response to students' posts.
• Use text with appropriate emoticons, stickers and images to create a positive learning environment. 
• Make use of short voice recorded notes so students can ‘hear’ a human voice whilst learning online. The Voice Recording function is available in the CK Editor / Rich Editor in Forums, Blogs, Announcements and Lesson Pages.  WhatsApp has a voice recording button as well.  
• Acknowledge students’ contributions and if necessary, ask leading questions to get further engagement. The importance of personal acknowledgment cannot be overemphasized.
• Set the tone for your engagements - it can be informal while taking the academic content seriously.
• Respond within a short timeframe, in line with the expectations you have set, to students who have queries and questions to prevent drop off in participation. 
• Set clear boundaries around topics or content being discussed, and the tone of communications. 
• Communicate through a one-to-one mode (private message) with a student if they are posting inappropriately. At times, a student may be unaware that their comment is inappropriate or offensive to others, so be thoughtful and professional in your response.
• Collaboratively create a list of rules for engagement for synchronous sessions with students. Suggested rules could include: mics off when someone is speaking, videos on when speaking. 

Additional Tips with examples:

Below are some tips with examples on how to respond in online discussions:

• Listening and acknowledging students’ concerns and queries and refraining from opposing their views directly, even if you disagree with them. “I can see what you are saying/ I acknowledge your view/ Perhaps you might also consider…”
• Clarifying any terms, or misunderstandings by referring back to something you, the lecturer or course convener has said (i.e. point to the evidence in the course such as a video) “As Brian says in the lecture video titled...”
• Helping with muddled arguments or clarifying a concept by stating in your own words what you think a student means “if I understand you correctly, you are saying…?”
• Be clear that you are offering your opinion only when making a clarifying point, and acknowledging that others’ opinions are valid. “In my opinion / according to what I have read... but this is only my view. What do others think?”
• Offering tentative rather than authoritative views of your own, pointing to a source or link where possible. “Of course there are many ways of thinking about this, but perhaps I can offer one view” /  “I have found the book/ work/ article by… useful to...”
• Leaving open spaces for multiple views by asking questions rather than giving answers, including inviting the views of other students. “I wonder what others might think in response to your question”

List of a few tools and how they can be used to build community: 

• Vula Blogs

This tool is ideally used as spaces for students to share their reflections which other students can read and comment on. It can also be set to private so that other students cannot read them, however, site owners and support staff will be able to read them.  As a tutor, it is a good idea to read blogs and stimulate further by asking questions where appropriate. 

• Vula Forums

This tool is commonly used for students to share their thoughts on particular topics, as well as to read and comment on others as students learn from each other. As a tutor, you will need to read posts to be informed of what is happening and reply where needed. At times, you will not be able to respond to each post made but can give a general comment to address any concerns or issues. It is often difficult to get the discussion going online because students feel shy to express themselves in writing, You may need to look for ways to help students overcome their hesitance - more playful introductory posts, or easy-to-do prescribed activities. Example “Post a picture of a contemporary South African musician and why you chose them”

• Vula Q&A

This tool can be used for students to raise and respond to a range of different questions. It also allows common questions (and their answers) to be surfaced. It is anonymous (by default) so often a less intimidating way for students to ask questions. This tool helps build a sense of belonging through students feeling comfortable in asking questions as well as ‘experts’ in answering and helping their fellow students. As a tutor, you need to check on these questions and responses should more assistance or clarity be needed. There are also settings that you can use to categorise questions, as well as change anonymous default settings to show names should this be needed.  If you want it well used, make sure you answer the questions as quickly as possible to establish it as a credible channel of communication.

• Vula Chat Room

This tool could be used to discuss a range of course topics with students, informally and formally; content-related or general check-ins. This is a good space for students to network with each other and to check who is online at that particular moment. If you have agreed to respond to student questions through the Chat Room, you will need to check at least daily and respond as quickly as possible.  

• Vula Polls 

This tool allows students to give input anonymously through voting, as well as with the option to view input (results) of those who already voted. This is a great tool for quick feedback, to create excitement and can be embedded in the lessons tool. You can get creative, using it to test prior knowledge, or ask feedback on given content, or at the end of every lesson.  The results can also be set to hidden should this be needed. 

•  Vula Comment

This tool is a function in the lesson tool. It provides space for students to share their thoughts on content or questions posed; of which others can read. It differs from polls in that input is in the form of text comments and not multiple-choice options.  It can be set to show the names of students or be anonymous.  

• Vula Student Pages

In the Lessons Tool, student pages can be assigned to an individual student or student group to work on together. This means that all members of that group will be able to add text, images and videos to the page, and edit other students’ contributions. It is a great way to get students to work together, although it is not a widely-used tool.  If your site uses student pages, your role as a tutor could be to check that your students are adding content to the group page and indicating which contributions are theirs.

• WhatsApp Group (External Tool)

WhatsApp groups can be created as a means to group students who belong to a particular tutorial group, or to group the entire cohort if it is a small to medium cohort. In these groups, you can stimulate thought by sharing interesting and related posts, get input from students as well as allow students to start networking with each other. Before setting up, it is a good idea to get their consent to be added to the group as well as to establish some boundaries in terms of what can be sent (Example: No unrelated content) and hours where applicable.  

• Mentimeter (External)

This is an easy-to-use and free tool, but does consume data. It can be used as an interactive activity in synchronous sessions. This tool allows students to share their input through voting regarding the given options (similar to polls). As a tutor, you can get creative in terms of the questions asked and voting options. Please keep in mind that this activity will need to be set up beforehand and that a code will be needed to go to the specific page where students will give input. 

• Padlet (External Tool)

This is a free tool in terms of no license costs, but it does consume data. It can be used for collaborative activities in which students contribute through posting different media (text, images, etc)  to a bigger group collage (digital wall), as well as like and comment on others. This site gives various ways in which you can use Padlet.

Group settings:

Several Vula Tools can be integrated for group-specific use that your course convener may have set up in Vula. Specifically, the Announcement tool can be used to send an Announcement only to members of a specific group, or you may have a separate Forum or Forum Topic dedicated to your tutorial or project group. Check with the course convener if they are using Vula Groups on the course site and what permissions you have as a tutor to send messages to your or specific students.