Abstract
Abstract
 In this essay, we have described how we build and sustain community in our online EdD program. Initially, we discussed our understanding of community and its influence on our efforts. Then, we discussed three important theoretical frameworks—Wenger’s Community of Practice, Garrison et al.’s Community of Inquiry, and Morris and Stommel’s Critical Digital Pedagogy—and how those frameworks helped to shape our efforts in building and sustaining an online community. Next, we discussed strategies/processes that we have successfully used to build and sustain community in our online program. These strategies were grouped around three kinds of relationships that have been central to community formation, interaction, and continuation—student-to-student, student-to-faculty, and student-to-broader-community. We discussed specific strategies such as the Leadership Challenge, Doctoral Research Conference, an online program “Hub,” comprehensive and immediate feedback, mentoring, and Leader Scholar Communities, that we have found to be particularly useful in building and sustaining an online community.
Highlights
Three theoretical perspectives have guided and continue to influence our efforts in building community in our online program. Wenger’s (1998; Wenger et al, 2002) communities of practice (CoP) framework has served as one of the theoretical perspectives guiding our online efforts for building and sustaining community
In their writing on communities of practice (CoP), Wenger et al (2002) suggested CoP were characterized by three elements: “a domain of knowledge, which defines a set of issues; a community of people who care about this domain; and the shared practice that they are developing to be effective in the domain” (p. 27, italics in original)
Relationships in the program have been developed by implementing a strong cohort model using CoP as a foundation, fostering engagement with one another through class and program requirements such as the Leadership Challenge Fishbowl and Doctoral Research Conference, which exemplify several program features
Summary
In their writing on communities of practice (CoP), Wenger et al (2002) suggested CoP were characterized by three elements: “a domain of knowledge, which defines a set of issues; a community of people who care about this domain; and the shared practice that they are developing to be effective in the domain” (p. 27, italics in original). Consistent with the concept of strong instruction, they developed and implemented a well-articulated, sequenced curriculum that facilitated students’ development as scholarly and influential practitioners In doing so, they fostered and supported a strong online community by using various class- and research-related components such as thorough feedback on assignments, on-going communications, an EdD Program Hub, virtual group and individual mentoring in Leader Scholar Communities, and so on, which are described more fully in later sections of the article. Relationships in the program have been developed by implementing a strong cohort model using CoP as a foundation, fostering engagement with one another through class and program requirements such as the Leadership Challenge Fishbowl and Doctoral Research Conference, which exemplify several program features In their definition of cognitive presence, Garrison and his colleagues (2000) claimed cognitive presence was “the extent to which participants ... The sustained discourse and reflective aspects of cognitive presence exhibited by students in our program have been fostered, supported, and sustained by faculty and social presence
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