How can educators  effectively build relationships by encouraging safe communication and interactions in online & open learning spaces? What did you already know, what do you know now based on the course readings and activities, what do you hope to learn?

With the current events in our world taking place, online and open learning is more relevant than ever before. With the absence of in person interaction, relationships need to be put first and foremost to help build a community online. I was once told by a teacher that education is R2, Relationships and relevance. Learners need strong relationships with their peers, their instructors, their self, and to their materials. Learners also deserve a sense of relevance to their learning. So, how can educators effectively build relationships by encouraging safe communication and interactions in online and open learning spaces? My initial thoughts are to have intentional activities and play. I believe that games are a metaphor to life and can help set the stage to the learning environment. Games can be used to help break up the intimidating formal structure of classes and provide a more relaxed way for learners to interact with their peers. For more mature learners, perhaps including a more forced interaction, having to comment on people’s posts and work in small groups to create community. Building community comes from putting time in, and a lot of it! From personal experience, I have found that interactive platforms and tools, like Zoom, are beneficial. Being able to see others and hear real-time voices, makes it more real. Within these platforms, educators need to foster healthy relationships for learners not only with others, but with themselves so that learners can feel safe. If they do not feel good about themselves, and do not have a great relationship with themselves, they likely will not feel safe in many situations, including online. Having expectations and protocols around safety can help with creating a safe place.

In the article, “What is Human-Centered Instruction” (n.d), they state that human-centered design (HCD) creates new solutions that are suitable to the needs of the people who they are designing for. This made me think about how learners can have a range of learning styles and levels. To build relationships with communicating and interacting online, learners need to have access to appropriate tools that will help them succeed. This means that there needs to be different tools to accommodate each individuals learning and interacting styles to make it fair for everyone, whether that requires extra support or not. I am a huge advocate for HCD and gaining empathy with the user. I believe that you cannot gain insights unless you have empathy with the user. Empathy can be used to help foster relationships where educators should be aware that learners may connect in different ways and through different modes, especially having unique personalities (ie. instructional play, talking, typing, etc…).

Howell (2015), talks about teaching onsite and how “technology serves as a background and are typically in lit, heated or cooled rooms” (p. 9). This made me think about the environment of the learners. For younger learners, I think that parent involvement can play a huge role in learning online. This includes providing a non-distracting and safe place to learn. Not every learner may have access to that, so how can we ensure that learners are equipped with the right equipment (ie. Desk, tablet, chair, good internet connection, etc…) and environment? I believe that would impact building relationships where some learners are confined to certain spaces that may inhibit or decrease willingness to interact. Like being in a house where the best option to learn is in a common room used by others. Learners in this situation may not want to turn on their camera or unmute their mics because others could be walking by or talking (which is also very distracting!).

Howell (2015) mentions, “We see interactions in discussion boards or on blogs or other social media, but often after they have happened. In short, we are removed from the experience of the moment, and we interpret things like feelings, thoughts, and relationships with and through technology” (p. 11). I thought that this was very interesting and am curious to learn how this impacts building relationships through communication and interaction.

References:

Howell Major, C. (2015). Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. (Chapter 1). Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874

What is Human-Centered Instruction? https://www.leadsv.com/hcn