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Learning Community or Community-Minded Learning Group? A Case Study of an Online Course

ABSTRACT This paper looks at the notion of community within online teaching and learning, in particular within that of online discussion. It offers a review of conceptions of community across different settings and considers that an online learning community should show spirit, trust, interaction, and learning. The notion of community is then explored within a case study of a Masters level online course on action research taught at a distance from a public University in USA. This course encouraged practitioners with different roles in education to begin action research projects to develop their professional practice. A multimethod approach was taken to explore the actions and perceptions of course participants. Findings are organised around the four elements of spirit, trust, interaction, and learning with each element described and elaborated in the context of the study. It is suggested that there were elements of community within the course but interaction was limited by time and course requirements. It is further suggested that the course better illustrates the idea of a community-minded practitioner learning group, rather than a community, and the strengths and weaknesses of this characterisation are set out.