So, I decided I needed to devote some of my course to preparing my students to learn. Approximately half of the students in the class are California residents, the other half are living in Sweden. You will see that during the first three weeks of the semester, I do not work on course content. This is probably the biggest stumbling block for educators when they begin to focus their classrooms on learning rather than teaching. Instructors have so much they want to teach their students and sometimes question how the students will be able to get through all of the material in one semester if they don't begin working on course content until Week 4.
Students also worry about having enough time to do the work for the course.
Here is where having that working definition of a learning community helps. In fact, no where in Webster's definitions did it mention time. Keep this in mind as we continue on with what I do to prepare my students for our online learning community. In Week 1, I welcome my students, tell them something about me, and ask them to introduce themselves. During this first week, the students are to read the web pages that explain the requirements of the course - textbook, supplies, hardware, software, etc.