Guidelines for Online Course Moderation and Community Building from a Student’s Perspective

This study examines students’ responses to questions about how online interactions and community building should be used in online courses. Four categories and 10 suggested guidelines emerged from the data. The categories were Student Needs, Instructor Behavior, Assignments and Community Building. The top three guidelines include 1) creating an environment that allows students to share, feel safe & respected, 2) using synchronous interaction and group assignments and model interactions, and 3) asking thought-provoking/probing questions. The responses are presented by frequency within each category. Since student responses were open-ended there are numerous additional guidelines offered.