The right community can be a source of support, connection and motivation – and a learning community is no different.
If you want to give your students the chance to take their learning experience to the next level through mentorship, teamwork, and student collaboration, it’s time to start building a learning community. As a bonus,it will help to grow your business and boost your brand reach too!
Find out what is a learning community and the essential elements of an online community.
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- Definition of a learning community
- Value of building a learning community
- Research study on what makes online learning successful
- Four types of learning communities
- Goals you should strive for
- Great examples of learning community models to follow
- Useful tools for building a fully online community
- What to keep in mind as you build
What is a learning community?
By definition, a learning community is a group of students with shared learning goals who collaborate and connect with one another. In a community of students, interactions are both practical and emotional. Learners of different or similar levels share knowledge and resources, as well as support, with emphasis on open, cohesive communication. It’s great whether you host cohort-based learning or continuous education models.
Here are some ideas to help you understand what is a learning community – and what it isn’t!
A learning community is or can be…
- A group with shared goals, motivations and values
- A place to share ideas, problems and questions
- A space for discussion
- A collaborative environment
- A source of inspiration
- A network of fellow students and experts
- A place to find mentorship on a specific subject matter
A learning community isn’t…
- A school or professional committee
- Just a social group
- A jobs board or marketing platform
- A substitute for formal teaching
If you’re still figuring out what a learning community is, use this article as your guide to help you understand what to promote, what to avoid, and what to strive for when building a learning community!
Why create a learning community for your course?
There are many benefits to creating a learning community, especially if you’re already a course creator. From boosting your brand reputation to encouraging feedback from students, here are some of the reasons to consider building a learning community around your course.
Grow your network
An online learning community isn’t just a way to keep in touch with students and encourage more engagement. It’s also a great way to grow your professional network. Encourage members of your group to refer their friends and colleagues to the community or share community posts with their followers.
With a bit of help from the people in your niche, you can quickly grow your course community network – no paid ads needed! Since you’re bringing in more like-minded people looking for solutions in the same niche, it’s also an effective way to generate high-quality leads for your course content. WIth a bit of additional nurturing, they will be easier to convert into paying customers down the line.
Boost your brand reputation
When you’re a course creator, your brand gets ingrained into everything you do. This is how potential customers will spot you in the crowd and get to know your products (and eventually purchase them).
A learning community is a great tool to build up a positive brand reputation. If you have an active group of engaged and enthusiastic learners, you can use this as a selling point for your business. People want to know that other people are already enjoying your course and your learning community is a really effective way to demonstrate that.
Improve customer loyalty
If you can create a close-knit learning community around your course, you can also increase customer loyalty for your brand. It works as a customer touchpoint to get repeat sales from customers by showing them what is next in your course series. This is especially effective if you have courses that build on previous course content. For instance, encourage graduates of your ‘beginners’ course to sign up for the ‘advanced’ course next. This not only adds value to your students – it can boost your revenue too!
Collect feedback from students
The best course creators know that their course content is never perfect but that there’s always more you can do. One of the major benefits of creating a learning community around your brand is that it’s easier to collect and collate customer feedback in one central place.
Encourage learners to provide reviews and testimonials for your course or fill out regular feedback forms. You can then use all that data to improve your course content and make the student experience even better. An active community of learners are more likely to provide feedback and they’ll really appreciate you listening to their opinions. If you’re struggling to collect insights from your audience, try gamification techniques like contests to incentivize responses.
Don’t forget: Thinkific has built-in community tools that make it easy to create an online learning community right off the bat, as well as collecting feedback and encouraging brand loyalty.
The University of Ontario’s research-backed proof of how to make learning community models successful
Online learning requires a slightly different learning community model to in-person or blended learning, thanks to being fully remote.
To encourage cooperation and social interaction in fully online courses, researchers at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology developed a learning community model specially designed for online courses.
Their Fully Online Learning Community model is based on the Community of Inquiry model developed by Randy Garrison, Terry Anderson and Walter Archer in 2001. It follows the idea that any online community of learners needs two things: Social Presence and Cognitive Presence.
Social presence
When you join a new group, it’s nice to be able to show your full personality to the group members to allow you to build a closer, more meaningful connection. Your social presence is defined as your ability to project yourself socially and emotionally – to be seen as a ‘real person.’
Social presence includes:
- Communication
- Group cohesion
- Collaboration
In an online learning community, it can be harder to show your full personality when you’re stuck behind a screen. Digital technology is the primary tool for all social activities so it has to be used well. This online learning community model considers how to improve interactions between group members online, helping learners to feel more connected with one another.
Cognitive presence
The second element to the online learning community model is cognitive presence. This is the learning portion of a learning community. Cognitive presence looks at the ability for participants to understand material and confirm what they’ve been taught.
Cognitive presence includes:
- Exploration of problems
- Proposing solutions
- Challenging and/or questioning
This research now demonstrates that cognitive presence combined with social presence are the two essential elements needed for an online learning community to be effective, regardless of the type of learning community you go for.
Four types of learning communities
Within the broad definition of a learning community, there are also different categories of learning communities. These categories are based on commonalities between types and motivations of learners and they usually depend on the environment where the learning community is formed.
Here are 4 types of learning communities:
- Interest-based learning community: Often communities of learners come together around their shared interests or passions. For example, it might be based on sourdough bread or sports cars. Whatever your interests, you can find or create a learning community around it.
- Action-based learning community: People who believe in a common cause might form an action-based learning community centered on activities that help to promote or further their cause. Social activism groups that run lectures, create educational resources and organize fundraising events are one example of an action-based learning community.
- Location-based learning community: For some groups, the common thread is location. Geographical learning communities might be centered on learning more about local flora and fauna or the history of the local area, for instance.
- Profession-based learning community: A common type of learning community is professional development communities aimed at bringing people of a particular profession together. Members might share advice, opinions, or just support one another. An example of a professional learning community is jazz musicians who get together to share their work, provide critique and feedback and network with other musicians. A lot of career mentorship can stem from this type of group.
Key goals of a learning community
Every learning community will have their own shared goals built around their specific student journey. At the same time, there are key elements that help to make for an enjoyable and rewarding environment for students.
Here are some key goals to strive for when building your own community online:
Shared learning
At the heart of any learning community is the aim to create an effective learning space that helps students achieve their unique goals. Participants should have the opportunity to share the learning process with their peers, including:
- Building solutions to mutual challenges
- Sharing resources, tips, and best practices
- Feedback and critique on drafts or completed work
- Questions & answers about subject matter
Connectedness
A learning community is hyper focused on developing connections between members. The best environments foster collaboration with open communication that’s aimed at promoting better learning.
Learners can share ideas, get emotional support and have fun together. It’s not just an academic space, it’s also a sympathetic social space.
Here’s a few ways to boost connectedness:
- Adding collaboration spaces like virtual whiteboards or creative idea lists
- Hosting brainstorming or mentorship nights
- Pairing new participants with more senior members of the group
Support
In any learning process, there will be ups and downs. An effective learning community also provides support for its members. This can be both academic and emotional support. Members are able to assist one another and share their problems to collaborate on solutions together.
Learning communities also provide a space for experts to offer their support too. This might be in the form of mentors, coaches or course leaders who act as moderators in the community. Depending on the intended use of your learning community, you’ll want to be careful about losing your own brand ownership and thought leadership when you invite other industry leaders to the stage. While it can benefit your learners a lot, it can also show potential customers about competitive course offerings that they could purchase instead of yours.
Successful learning community models to inspire you
Feeling more confident and getting ready to gear up for your own community? Don’t forget to take a look around for some inspiration. We’ve gathered a few successful examples of course creators that have founded their own online learning communities to see a wide variety of benefits for both themselves and their audience.
StudioCrew Community
The StudioCrew Community is led by Gillian Goerzen, founder of the Super You Studio and creator of the Super You Mindset Course. Gillian created her online community to stand in as the biggest cheerleader for her clients, helping them have a source of inspiration and motivation on their mental and physical wellness journey. Her course offering is unique as it allows students to carve their own path rather than follow a predetermined route to better health, so the community operates as a way to share ideas of how to move along that journey.
Gillian’s online community membership also comes with:
- Access to weekly emails with tips and inspiration
- Access to a Facebook Group of motivated co-participants
- Access to the StudioCrew Resource Library which features downloadable worksheets & templates
- Special rates for 1-1 coaching
- Twice monthly “StudioZooms” for connection, camaraderie and coaching opportunities
The all-in approach helped Gillian foster a super positive and collaborative environment across her following.
The Online Business Launch Lab
Latasha James runs her learning community called the Online Business Launch Lab through Thinkific. The community supplements her course on how to grow a new business from the ground up and feeds off her own freelancing business that earned over $1M. According to Latasha, “The strength of our [knowledge sharing] businesses is inextricably linked to the communal learning spaces we build for our students. For me, Thinkific Communities means a more rounded and supportive space for my audience. The collaborative environment allows students of all different learning styles to engage with and help each other, and is also a key revenue driver for my business.”
Some great features of the Online Business Launch lab include:
- Access to coaching support from other entrepreneurs
- Lifetime access to a library of worksheets and downloadable resources
- Hands-on experiences to engage with business building concepts in practice
- Feedback from other students on your business’ launch plan
Tools for building a fully online learning community
To build an online learning community that is genuinely useful for its members, it’s important to have some tools at the ready. The right tools can aid communication, improve virtual engagement, and make it easier to build a sense of connectedness between community members.
Helpful tools include:
- Video conferencing software (eg. Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet)
- Social media groups (eg. Facebook Groups, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit)
- Chatting tools (eg. WhatsApp, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Facebook Messenger)
- Online community hosting platforms (eg. Thinkific)
- Virtual engagement & gamification software (eg. Kahoot, Jotform Quiz Maker, Pointagram)
- Email tools (eg. MailChimp, ActiveCampaign)
These tools drive interactivity and allow students to collaborate easily – including asking questions, testing knowledge, day-to-day socializing and chatting, and keeping members informed of the latest news.
Factors to keep in mind as you build
Building your learning community can be a breeze, so long as you know what to look out for at each step of the growth journey. Here’s a few tips on where to look and what to do so that your community can be as successful as possible.
Avoid making your niche too narrow
While it’s good to have a clear focus for your learning community, a niche that is too narrow can make the size of your group small and can limit topics of conversation. Learners have a diverse range of needs and interests within your central topic – your learning community should be able to embrace that and encourage it.
Avoid too many rules or regulations about how to behave or interact in the group unless it’s absolutely needed. You want to keep creative minds flowing and motivated to share ideas within your niche.
Not enough support
Any learning community is only as good as the support it provides students. Prioritize building a strong, supportive network of mentors and other community members to help students progress and achieve their aims. Check out one of these courses on community management to sharpen your skills before launch.
To boost support in your learning community, try appointing dedicated mentors or coaches to help students who are struggling. You could also incentivize activity in the group by rewarding people who answer others’ questions.
Limited communication
For a learning community to work, there needs to be a culture of collaboration and cooperation in the community. If members don’t have enough time, motivation, or tools to enable effective collaboration, it can be hard to achieve the original aims of the community.
For many course creators, the early days of a learning community will probably involve more input from you or your team to build up the atmosphere of communication. Try posing questions, running polls, and even offering competitions to boost engagement and communication in your group.
Building a strong, supportive learning community takes planning and time. But with the right tools, you can create a space that helps your learners achieve their goals.
Now you know all about learning communities – try making your own!
If you’ve created an online course or you’re in the process right now, don’t hesitate to build a learning community for your students. Learning communities are a really effective way to boost engagement in your course and improve the overall learning experience while having some major pluses for your brand too.
Of course, you don’t need to stop at just one learning community – you can create as many as you want or need.
Learn more about building a learning community with Thinkific here!
This blog was originally published in March 2022, it’s since been updated in July 2024 to become even more useful.
