Before, During, and After the Lecture:

Use of Online Discussions (aka Bulletin Boards)

Robert Baird CITES EdTech Cinema StudiesFeb. 2005

The Long Process of Evolution

• Initial learning curve of discussion tool software

• Long term adaptation: learning to exploit online environment

Takes

long time

to adapt

Discussion Board Fundamentals (compare with f2f class):

• Web-Based & Public (by default to entire class, or even entire world)

• Recursive Communication (post n reply)

• Asynchronous (24X7 publishing and reading)

• Messages Remain Available (by default, unless instructor deletes)

• Searchable• Text-based (but can easily hyperlink,

illustrate, and attach files)

Management Issues:

• Isn’t the time investment scary?

you have to let the

students know when

they can expect to

get in contact with

you. Posting your

office hours, setting

expectations for

replies to email and

even letting the

students know when

your personal time

starts and stops.

Chris Weaver

Management Issues:

• Isn’t the time investment scary?

The big complaint

about Discussion

Boards is that it takes

a lot of time. It can if

you are lucky. If you

spend your time up

front providing great

content, exacting

guidelines and open

questions, you will find

that the posting are

interesting and

enlightening. If you

see reading the

postings as a way to

grade the students a

little bit every week

rather than reading

term papers at the end

of the semester, it

puts the workload into

perspective.

Chris Weaver

Management Issues:

• Learning about and developing experience building and managing online discussions is key to keeping the time investment worthwhile

Management Issues:

• Seek and try out the most efficient strategies for reading, responding, searching, printing, citing, grading, and archiving discussion posts

Establish a Community Learning Space:

• Ethics & Behavior: – Respect– Tone– Productive argument

Establish a Community Learning Space:

• Grading rubric: – from “participation” to specific numeric scale for

assignments, midterms, and finals– For a sophisticated rubric to be shared with

students see Susan Colaric’s 4 level guide at

http://www.coe.ecu.edu/lsit/colaric/FORC/InstructionalStrategies.html

Establish a Community Learning Space:

• Expectations: quantity, quality, response time, grammar & spelling, writing style on range from formal to informal

must tell

students

about

compliment

sandwich!

students get credit for providing peers with additional citations

Establish a Community Learning Space:

• Expectations are established by the Instructor’s– Guidelines and rubric– Initial, get-things-going postings in new topics– Modeling of posting, responding, critiquing, and

so forth– Grading– Praising & referencing of student work– Cautionary emails to slackers and belligerents

(Must Have) Specific Teaching and Learning Goals:

– Integration of online discussions with classroom discussion and course work

– Give students some % of course credit for work in discussion boards

Building Discussion Topics:

It’s like laying out a garden—if you don’t plan you get an overgrown garden instead of a well-designed garden

Building Discussion Topics:

• Types:– Icebreakers & community building (cyber café;

introductions; trivia)– Help desk (content, course, teaching questions)– Instructor/content-driven (chapter questions;

online assignments; responses to readings/problem sets)

– Student group work (scheduling and coordination; project planning)

– Student/content driven (show and tell; current events tie-ins)

Discussions should Support Your Global Teaching Strategies:

Want to Improve Your Lectures? Listen to Your Students and Adapt Lectures Accordingly

Discussions should Support Your Global Teaching Strategies:

Validate student successes and red flag confusions through

your responsesreferencing and quoting of students postingsongoing gradingoffering best posting awards each weekincorporating student ideas into your lectures

Discussions should Support Your Global Teaching Strategies:

Expose the Student Learning (and not learning) and Problem Solving Processes

Discussions should Support Your Global Teaching Strategies:

Achieve More Frequent, Extensive, and Detailed Student Feedback

Discussions should Support Your Global Teaching Strategies:

Provide a Time and Place for Modeling, Observing, and Coaching Student Processes and Performance

Resources“Tips for Facilitating Online Discussions” by Leslie Bowman and George Parishttp://teachers.net/gazette/AUG02/bowmanconway.html“Assessment of Online Discussions” by Leslie Bowman and George Parishttp://teachers.net/gazette/OCT02/bowmanconway.html "Using Focused Web-Based Discussions to Enhance Student Interaction and Deep

Understanding" by Caroline Hodges Persell of New York Universityhttp://edtech.cites.uiuc.edu/staging/edtech/teaching_learning/pedagogy/persell_soc_disc_board.pdf

Discussion Board Decision Tree, by Chris Weaver of East Carolina Universityhttp://www.ecu.edu/elearning/discussionboard/“Developing a Learning Community” by Susan Colarichttp://www.coe.ecu.edu/lsit/colaric/FORC/InstructionalStrategies.html