Facilitating Connected Knowing Through Virtual Learning Communities

INtrODUctION Generally believed critical to facilitating multi-dimensional instructional experiences for participants in a range of educational environments (for example, as accessed through academic institutions, corporate staff development, professional organizations, and so forth), the use of learning communities as an important instructional method is widely recognized across academic disciplines, teaching approaches, and delivery media. In fact, Lave and Wenger (in McPherson & Nunes, 2004) argued that learning is, by nature, an activity by which one engages knowledge in many forms, through which one becomes a " member of the community of knowledge " (p. 305). As such, communication, collaboration, and interaction become essential methods in facilitating instructional partnerships. Extending beyond a social context, the ongoing relationship building , advising, and mentoring generated through participation in learning communities provide a foundation for continued cognitive development and knowledge construction (Rovai, 2002; Wegerif, 1998). Such environments facilitate both ongoing discovery and a personal relationship to learning; enable interpersonal connections; emphasize the application of previous experiences to current learning goals; and, promote democratic teaching-learning partnerships, allowing participants to develop both collective and individualized perspectives and ap-the importance of community development to learning as equally valuable regardless of the instructional medium, both wide-scale anecdotal feedback and more formal research indicated that this aspect of learning was particularly essential to student satisfaction, motivation, and retention in Web-based classrooms in which students may never physically come into contact with peers, instructors or campus/organizational services and Communities that develop in online instructional environments can be similarly transformative in their significance to research generation, self-assessment, and critical thought development, as well as important to furthering advising/consulting relationships, social networks, and professional affiliations.