I had this under another entry, but it became a major issue, so I’ve moved it to its own posting.

Interesting about Ostrom is that she is looking at successful communities. What makes a learning community successful? Its learners are inspired? All learners construct some knowledge? Knowledge is constructed? All students pass the course? All students get good grades? I guess it’s possible for a learning community to be successful in its designers’ terms (student retention is excellent and grades are good) and in students’ terms (workload is not too high and grades are good) without it being successful in terms of being a generic learning community (eg information is shared but little or no knowledge construction goes on). I suppose in that case it would be a successful community but not a successful learning community.

So, does the OU definitely want learning communities? Say they started a FirstClass conference and it really got on to something and constructed a whole new theory BUT this overwhelmed students and a lot of them just gave up, would this be a successful learning community? Would the OU be happy with this?

I guess the OU has its own agenda, and wants to promote certain types of learning communities, which are open and inclusive. After all, Oxbridge has been successful in creating elitist learning communities where lots of knowledge is constructed by lots of people are being excluded.

So, it looks as though there are different types of learning community. The OU, I guess, wants inclusive learning communities which empower all students to learn (and, as a sub-text, aid retention and grades).