Breaking the Ice? How to Foster the Sense of Community in MOOCs

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are usually attended by several thousand learners who barely get to know each other during the course period. Being unaware of fellow learners often results in a low sense of community. In addition, many MOOC learners are afraid of using the course forum, which often is the only participation opportunity in social course activities apart from forming smaller learning groups. Thus, learners can easily be frustrated with the course content when feeling alone. To improve social presence and the sense of community, course instructors can use ice-breaking games. First, this paper evaluates which kind of ice-breaking games can be used in MOOCs. Afterward, we present the results from a first experiment where we use “self-reflection sociograms as an icebreaking activity. Most learners perceived the implemented Self-Reflection Questionnaires” (SRQ) ice-breaker as a positive course feature (68.35%). SRQs increased the sense of community, and learners were satisfied (91.06%) with their perceived community sense level. The SRQs were also helpful for the teaching teams. Our results indicate that further investigation of SRQs is beneficial to explore the provided value for course instructors and their influence on individual MOOC learners and community-building.