Online teaching and learning have become widespread in higher education over the past two decades, and accelerated during the pandemic. Although online learning is expanding and has many benefits, instructors teaching online courses must deal with a variety of demands in online learning environments. Formative assessment and sense of community have been recognized as significant factors for enhancing meaningful student learning in online platforms. While existing technological resources create opportunities for students to engage with course materials and collaborative tasks, it can be quite daunting for a single instructor to meet the needs of a diverse student population. Typically, online instructors often do not have learning assistants (LAs), and/or lack models for how to effectively deploy these human resources in online environments. In this paper we describe how the creation of online instructional teams with specialized LA roles (online learning researchers [OLRs] and online instructional managers [OIMs]) can support formative assessment and community building in online courses. The OLRs and OIMs were trained to fulfill specialized roles to support formative assessment and the development of a more cohesive community of learners had a positive impact on asynchronous online courses at our institution.