Bounded Community - Myers

Community is a critical component of any learning environment. When students are a part of a learning community, they have the opportunity to learn from others and collaborate on projects. They are also more likely to stay engaged and interested in the course. Learning and working in a team environment helps students to prepare for real-world working environments.

The article Bounded Community: Designing and facilitating learning communities in formal courses outlines the following key components necessary for building a community in the learning environment:

1) Shared goals - the course goals must be relevant to each student

2) Safe and supportive conditions - students must feel comfortable enough to share their thoughts and ideas

3) Collective identity - a difficult goal to attain in a short period of time, the learning community must have an identity of its own

4) Collaboration - learners must have opportunities to work together

5) Respectful inclusion - all groups of people include diversity, but all must feel included and accepted by others

6) Progressive discourse toward knowledge building - discussions must allow for ideas of students to build on each other until a mutual understanding is attained

7) Mutual appropriation - learners must accept the responsibility to not only learn, but instruct each other

It is the responsibility of the teacher or facilitator to not only design the course to allow for these elements, but to monitor and moderate them throughout the course to ensure that a strong community is created and sustained.