Gaining a sense of community in an asynchronous environment!

    Asynchronous can be a fantastic opportunity (as we learned last week) for students to have control of their own schedule and have the free range to compete schoolwork in their own time. A terrific way that students can do this is through the learning of pre-recorded videos. With pre-recorded videos students get to see teachers like they would in real time but with the benefit of doing it at their own set aside time. A huge advantage of this would be that students would have access to these videos when they feel as if they did not pick up on what the teacher was saying if they happened to get sidetracked or just to look back on knowledge they did not quite remember.  

    An additional method would be the use of a discussion board. A discussion board gives the students the sense of seeing peers without truly seeing them. Students get to understand how their classmates think and through their readings students can see who they are as a person. This is important to many students so they can get the sense of support and motivation through other classmates and majority because students can come together and help each other through their comments while others may be confused and can use the classmates help to understand the discussion at hand.  

    Lastly, zoom meetings. Zoom meets where the major hit when COVID-19 pulled students out of the classroom and pushed them into asynchronous learning. Zoom meetings are a great way for teachers to lead a classroom just as they would do one in person. The meetings give students the advantage of getting to talk one-on-one to peer's and teachers which can help greatly to students that are struggling or may just need that one-on-one time with teachers.  

    Although each asynchronous method of learning is great, the one I am most drawn to would be a discussion board. I love this method of asynchronous learning because it helps me see how my classmates are thinking on the topic at hand and always deepens and furthers my thoughts I had on the topic before going through my peer's discussion which only helps me learn more and provides me with more knowledge leaving the discussions.