Designing Blended Learning Communities

Learning Community

Rooted in social learning theories, learning community has become an increasingly popular notion in schools at all levels. It has been widely documented that learning communities have positive influence upon students’ academic performance and school experiences (e.g. Zhao & Kuh, 2004). To begin with, one essential question that needs to be addressed is what constitutes a learning community? Deng and Yuen (2007) mapped out the structure of an online community and put interaction at the heart of community-based activities. Unlike casual and random online communications, interaction within a community is constant and continual (Conrad, 2005) with multiple members involved in two-way communications (Jones, 1997). On account that learning is social as well as intellectual (Dede, 1996), social interaction alone is not sufficient to ensure purposeful reflection and critical discourse vital for active learning (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008). Thus, at the heart of a learning community is an interactive process that engages students in social interaction and critical discourse.

A meaningful learning experience in a community context has two implications: “the first is to construct meaning from a personal perspective. The second is to refine and confirm this understanding collaboratively within a community of learners” (Garrison & Anderson, 2003, p. 13). As such, “the right balance and blend of collaborative and individual learning activities is the key ingredient” (Garrison & Anderson, 2003, p. 24) in a learning community. Therefore, the construction of a learning community calls for two sets of balance: 1) balance between individual and collaborative learning; and 2) balance between social interaction and critical discourse.