Don’t waste your time teaching in an on-line environment

In this paper I address one question asked by teachers who teach online-“How can I build community among my learners in my class? ” This paper provides an answer; in fact, it provides ten possible answers, in the form of ten models for teachers to use to build community in on-line courses. Each model has been tried and tested over ten years of post-secondary experience in designing and teaching twenty-nine online courses at four institutions in Canada. Community can be built in online courses. Each model offers ten unique approaches regarding how to develop community among learners and teachers in a course. The tacit notion hidden within and throughout each model is that courses that develop community and good pedagogic relationships among learners and teachers are those that are intentionally designed to do so. Each model described in this paper includes a unique structure of ideas, a rational for the model’s use and some strong theoretical support. Each model is a particular expression of the general concept of constructivism-that thinking is socially constructed, and knowledge a social construction. When intentionally designed to do so, an online class activity of socially constructing some project or collaboratin