Alex Serna & Jee Deogracias

When you walk into the middle school summer program for any of Breakthrough Collaborative's 24 affiliate sites across the country, whether in Miami or Sacramento, you immediately recognize something unique and special. In San Juan Capistrano, if you walk into Sillers Hall, where students and staff gather to eat, you'll be taken aback by 136 students cheering and chanting in unison (let's be honest, these are middle school students who in their natural environment aren't the most inclined to want to do cheers). It is quite a sight. That energy and community never falters throughout the six-week summer program,  which aims to reverse the summer learning slide, prepares our students for college, and builds community. In addition to supporting highly motivated, traditionally underrepresented students, Breakthrough also empowers and trains college-aged students (referred to as “teaching fellows”) to become the next generation of educators and advocates.

Going into our 2020 summer program amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, affiliates were forced to find alternatives to in-person programming. The situation left Breakthrough leadership with a huge challenge: how do we recreate the energy, spirit, and community of a 40-year-old, in-person program to a virtual setting? 

Like many others who embarked on online learning for the first time this past spring, we were initially apprehensive. Several critical questions were looming which would determine the program’s outcome: Will students show up? Will they show up consistently? Will they have technology tools at home to participate? Will we prepare students for the fall and beyond? Will teaching fellows feel impacted by the experience? These concerns were especially salient considering local and national reporting and research that indicated low student attendance rates and engagement, especially among historically underrepresented students, when school districts switched to remote learning in the spring. 

With agility, fortitude, and positive spirits, Breakthrough staff across the country not only reimagined core components of a traditional Breakthrough summer but also developed creative alternatives to best meet the needs of both students and teachers. While the summer wasn't without its challenges, we found many examples and lessons learned to celebrate and share. 

Our newest white paper, "Breaking Through the Distance: How Relationships Foster Online Learning," summarizes our key learnings as six strategies that educators and others can use to best position their students for success during virtual learning. We share our strategies below:

Strategy 1: Believe that online learning is possible.

• Hold positive mindsets and high expectations.

Strategy 2: Be flexible in translating programs to online formats. 

• Redesign programming while staying true to essential program goals.
• Reassess and adjust continually based on feedback from students and staff.

Strategy 3: Create safe spaces in small and large groups to build relationships.

• Cultivate belonging, not only through small groups, but also through large group community-building opportunities.
• Create safe spaces for both students and teachers to allow for meaningful learning.
• Build connections in the "off" times though open office hours, community work times, and other non-academic opportunities.

Strategy 4: Prioritize connections with families.

• Ask for regular feedback from families.
• Share highlights and challenges with families in a student-centered way.
• Offer regular and accessible family events.

Strategy 5: Define and communicate expectations for online participation. 

• Set clear digital expectations and norms through technology trainings.
• Rely on multiple indications of online student engagement.

Strategy 6: Immerse students in real-world content that is relevant and fun.

• Infuse social justice and real-world examples throughout the program.
• Keep learning fun and joyous.

In reflecting on summer 2020, it was somewhat surprising to discover how powerful the relationships were by the end of the virtual summer, but also exciting to know that the essential elements of a Breakthrough program are still as powerful online as it is in person. As one student remarked, "Despite having a different environment this year, every class still had a sense of community." In many respects, we were able to re-create the energy and community reminiscent of Sillers Hall virtually.
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The Collaborative’s successes are evidenced in the data; by the end of the summer:

• 92 percent of students completed the summer program, comparable to in-person summers;
• 81 percent of students felt more prepared to learn at school in the fall;
• 76 percent of students felt better prepared to use digital tools/technology at school in the fall; and
• 87 percent of teaching fellows reported that their 2020 experience was "very good" or "excellent," higher than recent, in-person years.

The successful summer reestablished in our minds that forging relationships and building community are critical components to student engagement and academic learning. While teaching and learning virtually can create physical distance between teachers, students, and peers, leading to feelings of isolation and disconnection, some practices can mitigate those challenges. We learned that not only can we build community virtually, but in order to do so, we have to engage and center the voices and experiences of our students and families. In that way, we can continue to learn, grow, maybe do some cheers, and ultimately, build a community that supports students on their path to college and success in life.

Alex Serna, M.Ed is the Executive Director at Breakthrough San Juan Capistrano. He can be reached via email (alex.serna@smes.org) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexserna1/). 

Jee Deogracias, Ph.D. is the Director of Research and Evaluation at Breakthrough Collaborative. She can be reached via email (jdeogracias@breakthroughcollaborative.org) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jee-deogracias). 
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Read the full Breakthrough Collaborative white paper at this link: https://www.breakthroughcollaborative.org/white-paper/ 

Drawing on several strands of literature, this study develops a comprehensive survey that systematically collects information on online college instructors’ use of instructional practices that the literature suggests are promising in promoting interactions in an online setting, as well as instructors’ perceptions of online education. We administer the survey to all online instructors at a large community college and examine how reported frequency of interaction-oriented instructional practices may cluster to form meaningful groups of instructors. K-means cluster analysis distinguishes between two profiles of instructors–a high-practice user group and a low-practice user group. The high-practice user profile is predicted by more teaching experience, greater self-efficacy for using learning management systems, and greater perceived benefits of online learning for students. The findings have several implications for future research examining pedagogical behavior, as well as the design of professional development activities aimed at enhancing the use of effective online instructional practices among college instructors.
​Read the full paper here.
Address correspondence to: Gabe Avakian Orona, ​gorona@uci.edu

By Sharla Berry, PhD
Assistant Professor of Education Leadership – California Lutheran University
@Sharla_Berry 
 
We are pleased to have Sharla Berry, PhD, Assistant Professor of Education Leadership at California Lutheran University author our blog today.  Dr. Berry’s research explores how students and faculty define and experience community in online courses and programs. She also examines the interpersonal, academic, extracurricular and technical factors that support and undermine online learning communities. In today’s blog she highlights some of the core findings of this research, and its implications for researchers and practitioners. The highlighted findings are drawn from two qualitative case studies. In the first case study, she draws on interviews with 20 students in one fully online doctoral program, as well as video and message board data from six courses (Berry, 2017).  In the second study, she interviewed 13 faculty who taught in the same online doctoral program (Berry, 2018, 2019).  In this post, she focuses on the tools and strategies that support community in online programs in higher education.
 
Finding 1:  Faculty Can Employ a Range of Student-Centered Strategies to Cultivate Community Online 
 
In a case study of one online doctoral program at the University of the West (pseudonym), students described their community as an interactive and supportive social group. They developed feelings of membership, belonging, and trust, which they associated with increased student engagement and retention (Berry, 2017). This community was fostered in large part by instructors’ ability to cultivate social presence in the classroom. To establish social presence, students must feel supported in sharing elements of their “real lives” in the online classroom, including elements of their academic, professional and personal identities (Garrison, 2011).
Faculty cultivated social presence by using a wide-range of student-centered teaching strategies (Berry, 2017b). At the start of the semester, faculty would post warm and welcoming content to the course message board. In these posts, they would preview the course and also share information about their personal background and interests. Some faculty would even share photographs of themselves engaged in hobbies and encourage students to do the same. Activities like this helped students build rapport with faculty and with each other (Berry, 2017b). Once the semester was underway, the instructors used a portion of class time to allow students to share personal and professional updates. While some faculty were reluctant at first to cede class time in this way, students said that having some time to share personal accomplishments and work-related challenges helped them cultivate feelings of community (Berry, 2017b, 2019). Students noted that in an online class, you lose the opportunity for “water cooler discussions” that occur when people are in physical proximity. Therefore, it was important for faculty to be intentional about creating opportunities for “small talk” in the classroom.
 
Finding 2: The Format of Online Delivery Impacts Students’ Experiences
 
A core finding of my work has been that synchronous (compared to asynchronous) learning has a unique impact on students’ sense of community in an online program (Berry, 2017; 2019b). Several students had participated in distance learning in the 1990s and early 2000’s. They noted that asynchronous communication did not provide them with the same level of engagement and interactivity as synchronous communication. Further, all of the students in the study indicated that synchronous video played a key role in how they were able to connect with each other. Students were required to turn their cameras on during the synchronous meetings. Using a “gallery view”, students could see all of their peers and their instructor simultaneously. As a result of this increased presence (and accountability), students were more likely to be focused on the class than they would have been if their cameras were off. Using video also provided students with an opportunity to build community by learning about the lives of their peers.  By seeing photographs, figurines and personal affects in the background, students were able to find similarities between peers and touchpoints for conversation (Berry, 2017b). In this way, synchronous video prompted more intimate interactions between students. These findings suggest that practitioners should consider opportunities for synchronous communication, including the use of video, when it is equally accessible to all students (Berry, 2019).
 
Finding 3: Faculty Need Support for Cultivating Online Learning Communities
 
In a case study of 13 faculty, I found that there was a wide range of faculty preparedness with regard to online teaching (Berry, 2018). Using the TPACK framework (Koehler and Mishra 2009), I found that some faculty had limited technical knowledge about how to operate a learning management system (LMS). These faculty benefited from targeted professional development that allowed them to tinker with the LMS (Berry, 2018). Other faculty, including early-adopters and self-taught technologists, desired professional development that focused on online pedagogy, which includes “deep knowledge about the processes and practices or methods of teaching and learning’’ (Koehler and Mishra, 2009,  p. 4).  It is here that institutional offerings were limited. Weekly faculty meetings formed a temporary substitute, as faculty used the time to discuss challenges associated with facilitating specific content online. However, faculty were unsure of different strategies to cultivate and assess deep learning in fully-online environments (Berry, 2018). There is a need for research and practitioner guides that address online pedagogy.
 
In this post, I have offered important considerations for teaching and learning online. Faculty may need to employ different teaching strategies and tools than they would in face-to-face classrooms. Drawing on my research, I have argued that online teaching can promote community through student-centered strategies. As practitioners make decisions about how to deliver online courses, this research urges them to consider the affordances of synchronous video.  Finally, I found that faculty need professional development that is targeted toward their skill level, interest, and content area. Just as students find personalized teaching beneficial, faculty need personalized professional development to build online teaching capacity. This piece, and the related studies, provide starting points for researchers and practitioners who seek to promote a sense of community in online courses and programs.  
 
Work Cited
 
Berry, S. (2017). Exploring community in an online doctoral program: A digital case study (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Southern California).

Berry, S. (2017b). Building Community in Online Doctoral Classrooms: Instructor Practices that Support Community. Online Learning Journal. Retrieved from https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/875/265
 
Berry, S. (2018). Professional development for online faculty: instructors’ perspectives on cultivating technical, pedagogical and content knowledge in a distance program. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-018-9194-  0(0123456789
 
Berry, S. (2019). The Role of Video and Text Chat in a Virtual Classroom: How Technology Impacts Community. In Educational Technology and Resources for Synchronous Learning in Higher Education (pp. 173-187). IGI Global.

Berry, S. (2019b). Teaching to connect: Community-building strategies for the virtual classroom.  Online Learning, 23(1), 164-183. doi:10.24059/olj.v23i1.1425 

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking, cognitive
presence, and computer conferencing in distance education. American Journal of distance education, 15(1), 7-23.
 
Garrison, D. R. (2011). E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. New York: NY. Routledge.
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Koehler, M., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)? Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60–70.