OBJECTIVES

  • Issues with Discussions
  • Facilitating Discussions: Best practices
  • Moderating discussions for deeper engagement
  • Alternatives to discussions
  • Sneak Preview: Advanced Moderating strategies: Interested?

Issues with Discussions

  • Unrealistic expectations of students, in class we guide, prompt & redirect students more in creating depth and expressing knowledge
  • Students find it as busywork
  • Role of the teacher - how to be involved when they are not there until the last minute, don’t return to engage in the discussion: instructors need to post questions that foster discussion
  • Students overwhelmed at number of posts to respond to
  • Faculty overwhelmed at number of posts to read, monitor and respond to

Participant Responses (to be added during discussion)

Best practices: Setting up Online Discussions

  • What do I want students to be able to do?
  • In what ways do I want students to understand this material?
  • What is the purpose of this discussion?
  • Does the prompt foster dialogue?
  • Does the prompt make students think?

Strategies to Facilitate Online Discussions

  • Give students clear expectations about online discussion requirements, deadlines, and grading procedures.
  • Assess the quality as well as the quantity of the students' online posts.
  • Provide a schedule for students of upcoming discussion board deadlines. Give as much notice as possible.
  • Provide structure for students to post to threads. A good structure lessens the frustration of what to write.
  • Make yourself visible in the discussion. Students will be more likely to engage in the discussion if they see you as being a part of it.
  • Do not allow domination of the discussion. If students are dominating the discussion, privately ask them to slow down a little
  • Have students moderate. This can take some of the pressure off the instructor and encourage participation. Sometimes students respond better to each other than they do to the instructor.
  • Give students choices. Have more threads than required for students to post to and give them some freedom to respond where they like.
  • Consider using a rubric to help clarify discussion expectations

Examples of Discussion rubrics:

Have you considered not emphasizing grammar and spelling in your Discussion Rubric?
An instructor shares her process:
“Discussion boards are for discussion – not grammar or spelling lessons.”
“This was not always the case. When I first began teaching online, I believed that anytime students wrote anything, they should be held accountable for both spelling and grammar, and my discussion rubric reflected that. As a result, I got very brief, very stiff, very formal discussion posts in which students were clearly speaking to me rather than to each other.
I hadn’t yet considered that what I was really doing was asking students to write what they would normally be speaking in a classroom. I didn’t correct their grammar every time they spoke and I didn’t have the opportunity to edit their spoken words for spelling – why was I doing so in the discussion boards? I quickly realized that I needed to prioritize content over form in class discussion or there would be no real discussion. Here is the preface I use to introduce the discussion boards:
“Discussions are the way we “participate” in class. So it’s important that you post thoughtful messages that move the conversation forward in some way. “Yeah, I agree.” is not an acceptable posting and will not earn any points. Your participation in discussions can earn you up to ten points for each thread. After the due date for the discussion, you will be graded on your overall participation in that discussion thread. Late posts are welcome for their intellectual value but will not be considered in your grade.
Your posts should show that you have read the material in the text as well as your group and/or partner’s posts and have applied all of that to the question at hand. You should do more than merely spit back what the text says; you should engage with the material by analyzing and interpreting it. While I won’t be grading based on grammar or spelling, your posts should be grammatically clear enough not to present anyone with a problem in understanding your point. It’s not a formal writing forum but it’s not Facebook either.”
And here is an excerpt from the rubric I use to grade the posts. To earn full points:
  • Initial postings are completed early in the week
  • Follow up posts (generally more than the minimum of one per discussion) are timely
  • Content is complete, on-point, thoughtful, and offers new ideas. Supporting detail is abundant and appropriate (ie, references from the pieces read and/or other sources)
  • Content often encourages further discussion on the topic or follows up on others’ thoughts
  • Postings are characterized by originality, engagement, and relevance to the topic
  • Postings demonstrate an understanding of the material assigned and familiarity with the ideas of the students partner and group members (in other words – it’s obvious that you’ve read and understood both the literature assigned and what your peers have written in their postings).
As you can see, the emphasis is on ideas rather than grammar or spelling. With the pervasiveness of email, instant messaging, text messaging, and the like, students are used to communicating ideas in abbreviated formats. By tapping in to that ability and comfort level, I can raise the bar on the intellectual demands and give feedback and suggestions on improving technical skills in other areas such as formal writing assignments.”
(Stacey Curdie is Director of Online Education, Plymouth State University.

Everyone in the class can read your postings.

  • Each time we respond to a student posting we are also posting to the whole class—and your words will remain “alive” for the entirety of the course. Always have your postings reflect a professional and dedicated instructor, be certain any facts and course information are in sync with what is included in the course (including textbook and other class resources), and use your postings to reinforce important course lessons and to motivate students.

Be a model of what you require of students in their postings.

  • You no doubt require that the majority of student postings be substantive in nature, and thus so should yours. Post a student discussion or model one in the first discussion. Never berate a student/the class or write in a negative tone. If additional information of a more specific nature is needed in response to a student posting, offer a general response in the discussion and send a private email or posting to the student. Always be upbeat. Students look to you for guidance, and the discussion is where you are most visible; it is there that you can have the greatest impact on the students.

Don’t be afraid to let personality and humor enter your responses.

  • Because we are using written words, not spoken ones, the facial expressions, tone, and gestures that make our spoken words take on defined meanings are missing in the online classroom. Certainly, punctuation serves this function to some extent—but injecting large doses of an upbeat personality and some occasional humor helps engage the class, creates a stronger student-instructor rapport, and helps students stay more involved in the discussion.

While your response will be to one student, always include the whole class.

  • As most people in the class, if not everyone, will be reading your response to a student posting, be sure you include the entire class. This might be done in several ways, but here are two: “Cathy—and everyone in the class—the example mentioned of …” or “Class, what Cathy pointed out in this posting reminds us…” Each of these gives recognition to the student’s posting—crucial in letting the students know that you read each post, and to establishing a stronger individual student-instructor rapport. This also lets the class know that your response to the student is not limited to the student but is information for all. You can also copy and paste several important contributions from students, allowing their voice to further the discussion.

When applicable, use examples or experiences from your life in responding.

  • Students enjoy peeking into the lives of their instructors. Offering bits and pieces of your life outside of class will certainly make you more approachable—but be sure you use your life experiences and situations for the benefit of underscoring, highlighting, and reinforcing lessons of the course.

Use your responses as opportunities to further involvement in class discussion.

  • Some of your responses may simply be statements, and that’s fine—but remember that statements by an instructor in a discussion have a 50-50 shot of getting students to respond to them; you are hoping that the subject and tone of your post will encourage students to respond—which makes for the ideal discussion. However, if you end your responses with a question to the class, this almost ensures student responses to your posting: many students will want to show their involvement (partially to receive a good discussion grade!), and it is human nature to respond to a question.

Create a bank of the best responses that you post for reuse in future classes.

  • As you respond to student discussion postings you will find that some of your substantive responses are really good—so good you’d like to use them for another class! There is nothing wrong with this—create an online folder labeled “Responses for Student Discussions, Class XXX, Week YYY,” deposit your selected responses there, and then use them when appropriate for future classes.

How to Respond: Different ways of asking questions to further dialogue

  • Critical-thinking questions require students to go beyond facts and discuss problems to work out.
  • Problem-based focus questions require students to provide evidence, evaluate assumptions, describe implications and potential consequences, and/or propose solutions.

Types of questions

The asynchronous nature of the discussion board makes it more important to plan specific questions because it’s not as easy as in a face-to-face class to ask a follow-up question when your initial question fails to elicit the level of dialogue you had hoped for. This is not to say that all questions in online discussions need to be scripted. Another important role for the instructor is to participate in these discussions and help students explore relevant but unplanned discussion topics and to get them back on topic when they stray too far.

  • Initial questions in an online discussion might ask closed questions, which can help establish a set of principles to build upon. But for the most part, threaded discussions should feature open-ended questions that elicit divergent thinking from the students.
  • Too often, however, instructors simply ask students to state their independent thinking on a subject and perhaps comment on two classmates’ postings.

Examples of questioning techniques that promote critical thinking include convergent, divergent, evaluative, and Socratic-questioning strategies.

  • Convergent questions require students to demonstrate understanding of content by interpreting information in a new way. These questions utilize verbs such as judge, explain, demonstrate, and support.
  • Divergent questions seek to stimulate creativity by asking for alternative outcomes or variations to a scenario.
  • Evaluative questions afford learners reflective opportunities through questions that call for justifying beliefs and gathering resources to defend and support one’s opinions.
  • Socratic-questions ask learners to examine reasons, assumptions, and perspectives and to provide justification and evidence for them (Walker 2005). Use of these question types is most effective for promoting critical interaction when implemented in asynchronous online discussions.

Once discussion begins, faculty can encourage participation whereby students demonstrate respect for each other’s ideas and where they build upon each other’s ideas. Instructors are responsible for keeping the discussion focused and asking probing questions that require students to reason through their thinking and construct their own understanding, e.g., by asking for elaboration or clarification (MacKnight 2000). Examples of clarification questions include:

  • “What do you mean when you say ___?”
  • “How could you rephrase that statement?” and
  • “Would you please explain that point further?”

A course can include different types of online discussions. In addition to an introduction, discussions can be used for reflection, debate, or exploring case studies, among other things. And as a course progresses, the online discussions can help move students to the higher end of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Domain (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation).

OPTIONS TO USE IN DISCUSSIONS AND ALTERNATIVES TODISCUSSIONS

Voice feedback:

Phil Ice (reference below) did a survey of students, comparing voice to text responses and here is a summary from his results:

  • Improved Ability to Understand Nuance:Students indicated that they were better able to understand the instructor’s intent. Students also indicated that instructor encouragement and emphasis were clearer.
  • Increased Involvement:Students felt less isolated in the online environment and were more motivated to participate when hearing their instructor’s voice.
  • Increased Content Retention:Students reported that they retained audio feedback better than text feedback. Interestingly, they also reported that they retained the course content to which the feedback was related better than with text feedback. These self-reported findings were supported by the fact that students incorporated into their final projects three times as much audio feedback as text feedback.
  • Increased Instructor Caring:Students interpreted the instructor as caring about them and their work more when they received audio feedback over text feedback. This difference was due to audio feedback coming across as more personal than text feedback.

Video takes this one step forward by providing a visual image along with the voice. See the chart below for some possible alternatives to discussions. Can you think of other ideas that would meet your learning objectives?

Strategy / Implementation
Distribution of Labor / Small group conferences: Students conduct web conferences discuss a question or topic, and then report to the instructor or the whole class a summary or consensus of their discussion
Students are divided into groups and one or two per group are assigned to facilitate the discussion within their group for the week, maybe rotate over multiple weeks
Students take on the role of an expert, research one area and report back to the group
Voice Thread:
To learn more about VoiceThread and how it’s being used in education, visit these sites:
VoiceThread introduction:
Creating a VoiceThread:
Student outcomes:
Art class example:
Student project:
VoiceThread 4 Education Wiki:
Public Comment / Students post comments on the blog of an author or an expert
Visual Fluency / Students find a photo that illustrates their learning
Students create a concept map that illustrates concepts
Deep Skimming / Students spend one hour reading excerpts from various books and summarizes, shares learning
Oral presentations / Students use video or audio for presenting in discussions
Group work /

Canvas gives us the ability to connect outside the LMS and to “add” third party applications that easily integrate into Canvas.

Other Ideas:

“If our goal is to generate thinkers and individuals who assimilate knowledge, then we have to involve them in activities that give them the freedom to do that. Simply feeding them the information does not really facilitate their abilities to learn those skills. That’s not teaching. That’s not empowering our students. When students are given the opportunity to participate in the instruction, they gain confidence with themselves and the pedagogy,”

Excerpted from Empowering Students to Become Self-Directed, Engaged Learners, Online Classroom, Dec. 2006.

Sneak Preview: Advanced Moderating strategies: Interested?

Learn and discuss how using different moderator voices in your online discussions can deepen the dialog between students and the material. Can you do more with fewer discussions?

Canvas Resources:
(follow the threads in the upper right of the Canvas guides to learn more about each topic)
Discussions

Group Discussions

Using Audio/Video in Canvas (for instructors and students)

Collaborate in Canvas (google doc and EtherPad integrated in Canvas)

Using collaborations for students

Resources:

Be a Hero: Think outside the Thread in Online Discussions: Nathan Bierma (Presentation in the InstructureCon conference)

Ice, P., Curtis, R., Phillips, P. & Wells, J. (2007).Using Asynchronous Audio Feedback to Enhance Teaching Presence and Students’ Sense of Community. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(2), 3-25. - See more at:

Facilitating Online Learning, Effective Strategies for Moderators: Collison, Elbaum, Haavind, Tinker

Feel free to copy and paste the URL below for more resources about managing online discussions and alternatives to online discussions.The document below was created as part of a session at the Northwest eLearn conference on October 10, 2013 with Stephanie Delaney. Tips from Stephanie are in Bold

bit.ly/nwel_discuss