ERIC Number: EJ1361918
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1449-9789
EISSN: EISSN-1449-9789
Building Belonging in Online WIL Environments--Lessons (Re)Learnt in the Pandemic Age: A Collaborative Enquiry
Mueller, Beate; Andrew, Martin B.; Connor, Melissa
Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, v19 n4 Article 16 2022
The theme of belonging in e-pedagogy gained currency in the 2000s when educational providers hastened to join the online teaching and learning boom and studies of building and maintaining a sense of community (SOC) proved central to this endeavour. Motivated by the pandemic-era necessity to convene teaching and learning online as part of a response to super-complexity as a defining feature of tertiary education in the 21st century, work-integrated learning (WIL) practitioners returned to this scholarship to consider, under pressure, modes of building SOC and belonging in online spaces. Underpinned by a broadly constructivist worldview and informed by the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, our COVID-age study considers what pedagogical strategies are viewed as affording learners this sense of belonging - or not. Using a collaborative enquiry to pool our perceptions and experiences from three WIL contexts, we ask how work-integrated learning (WIL) practitioners build belonging in online spaces and identify strategies learners perceive as valuable. Drawing on the authors' small-scale studies of educator and learner experiences of online WIL (eWIL), our collaborative enquiry uses qualitative descriptive analysis to identify key themes in the voices of students. Advancing the scholarship, our study identifies three threads to the fabric of belonging: humanising online WIL; the importance of mentor presence; and fostering professional belonging. The study suggests that strategies impacting these three areas are at the heart of building belonging in online spaces, broadly envisaged as imagined professional communities of practice. Techniques viewed as successful are advanced as possibilities for enhancing pedagogy in online WIL communities.
Descriptors: Work Experience Programs, COVID-19, Pandemics, Sense of Community, Communities of Practice, Educational Strategies, Electronic Learning, Cooperative Learning, Humanization, Mentors, Internship Programs, Practicums, Foreign Countries
University of Wollongong. Available from: Centre for Educational Development and Interactive Resources. Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia. Tel: +61-2-4221-3140; Fax: +61-2-4225-8312; e-mail: jutlp@uow.edu.au; Web site: https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A