Better Together: Designing Belonging Online

Design online and hybrid learning spaces where learners can participate, be recognised, take intellectual risks and repair relationships when things go wrong.

• Treat belonging as a design condition — Learners are more able to take risks and persist when they can recognise themselves as legitimate members of the learning community.
• Create social presence without demanding performance — Learners need ways to encounter one another as real people, but social presence should not depend on constant self-display.
• Design more than one doorway into participation — Real participation can happen synchronously, asynchronously, verbally, visually, collaboratively or through considered individual contribution.
• Design norms for disagreement, impact and repair — Healthy communities need ways to handle misunderstanding and harm, not just rules about being nice.
• Make teaching presence predictable and human — Learners need to know that someone is noticing the learning, shaping the environment and responding when support is needed.