Becoming a 'Communal Architect' in the Online Classroom-- Integrating Cognitive and Affective Learning for Maximum Effect in Web-Based Learning

Ebersole, Samuel and Robert Woods.“Becoming a ‘Communal Architect’ in the Online Classroom—Integrating Cognitive and Affective Learning for Maximum Effect in Web-Based Learning.” Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration. 5:1. Spring 2003. State University of West Georgia, Distance Education Center. http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring61/woods61.htm
(20 September 2009)

In this article, Ebersole and Woods discuss what it means to be a “communal architect” through the metaphor of scaffolding. The authors refer to many articles and studies by other scholars who have researched community in the online classroom. The article also points to Climate Theory—a concept from community and social psychology literature—that discusses the variance of psycho-social climates, asserting that “climates are a product of environmental and [individual]s characteristics, and that the relationships between climate, setting, and individuals are reciprocally influential” (2). Ebersole and Woods begin by discussing their concept of the communal scaffolding, transitioning to ways in which instructors can apply various components of the scaffold, and, finally, to the relationship of studies of online communities and climate theory.

This article is very useful in my study of online communities in the online classroom in terms of its offering of applicable strategies for constructing online communities. In a way, it restates or says the same thing as much of the literature on this topic does: asynchronous chat, immediacy, e-mails, and live chat are some of the primary considerations of building community in the online classroom. The useful new concept here is the notion of communal scaffolding itself, a metaphor for teaching techniques that resonates with the notion of scaffolding as a way of building up a student’s ability to understand a topic, an approach commonly employed in tutoring and writing centers. I think this metaphor is useful because it suggests and facilitates a hands-on, pragmatic approach to community building in the online classroom. Also, as I’ve stated in previous annotations, I appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of this article, one that encourages community amongst the various disciplines that can contribute usefully to a discussion of online communities, such as psychology, anthropology, composition and rhetoric, sociology, women’s studies, and communications. My only critique of this article in terms of its usefulness for my purposes is that it seems to gloss over some of the problems in online community-building that affect both student and teacher. Additionally, as with some other articles in this bibliography, it does not mention much about gender, race, or multiculturalism, something I see as necessarily bound up with notions of community in the online classroom.