{"id":19,"date":"2012-10-27T11:35:20","date_gmt":"2012-10-27T17:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/?p=19"},"modified":"2014-01-29T14:31:25","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T21:31:25","slug":"19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/?p=19","title":{"rendered":"Online Discussions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Online Discussion Video and Resources<\/a>
\nOne of the challenges of online instruction is what to do about discussions.\u00a0 There are most likely as many approaches to discussions as there are instructors.\u00a0 At a minimum, online discussions should serve to accomplish several goals including student reflection<\/p>\n

about the course content and new learning; provide opportunities for collaboration; asking questions and receiving answers to questions; and creating online community.\u00a0 I structure online discussions with these goals in mind.\u00a0 In order to create the online discussion norms I want for my courses, I model the online discussion techniques I expect during the first few weeks of a course.\u00a0 I post open-ended prompts to which the students reply.\u00a0 I facilitate the discussion throughout the week to guide the discussion and keep the discussion moving in the direction of the prompts.\u00a0 I require that students are online early in the week.\u00a0 My week runs from Monday morning to Sunday midnight, and students are required to post a reply to the weekly prompt no later than Wednesday.\u00a0 In addition to posting a reply, students are required to ask a question, raise an original point and\/or connect a post to the week\u2019s assignment or their professional experience.\u00a0 Later in the week, they are required to post a 2nd<\/sup> response.\u00a0 Students are held accountable to the discussion posting through a self-assessment rubric (see below), which is completed and submitted for scoring by the end of each week. Beginning either the 2nd<\/sup> or 3rd<\/sup> week of the course, I assign Discussion Leaders who are responsible for posting the weekly discussion prompts.\u00a0 I provide a Discussion Leader guide (see below) to assist them with this role.\u00a0 At this point, I inform students that I will assume a \u201clurker\u201d role in the discussions.\u00a0 I will not participate directly in discussion, but will lurk in the discussions, reading posts and replying individually through private email as the need arises.\u00a0 I find that this approach works well for me, because as I stop talking, the students start learning.\u00a0 By lurking I am able to identify misconceptions that are stated, redirect students individually and answer specific questions as needed.\u00a0 I ask students to invite me to their discussion should they want my input.\u00a0 I usually get an invitation every other week or so.\u00a0 In addition to facilitating the discussion, the discussion leader summarizes the week\u2019s discussion and posts that summary in the next week\u2019s discussion area.\u00a0 This provides closure to the week\u2019s discussion and creates a record of each discussion.\u00a0 For their work as discussion leader, after submitting the discussion leader rubric (see below), the student is exempt from submitting a rubric the next week and still receives full credit.\u00a0 I have found this approach very successful and students thrive in discussions.\u00a0 In a recent post-course evaluation, one student said, \u201cI felt my discussion group was very knowledgeable and supportive of all my postings and was given help when needed. I think this is an extremely valuable part of this course.\u201d<\/p>\n

I know this is not the only approach to discussion.\u00a0 A colleague of mine has found the same success in his discussions by being directly involved in discussions each week, reading every post and responding on a regular basis. He and I created a webinar<\/a> that highlights the differences.<\/p>\n

Whatever your approach to discussions, it is important to keep in the mind the goals of discussion.\u00a0 I believe one of the keys to effective online instruction is maintaining a constant presence and attending to student questions and concerns in as timely a manner as possible.\u00a0 As one student said, \u201c The Professor kept me very well notified, and the discussions helped me develop my ideas even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Online Discussion Video and Resources One of the challenges of online instruction is what to do about discussions.\u00a0 There are most likely as many approaches to discussions as there are instructors.\u00a0 At a minimum, online discussions should serve to accomplish … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-discussions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329,"href":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jgravesedu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}