EdTech provides consulting, training, outreach and educational services
for faculty, instructors and staff using educational technologies.
EdTech provides consulting, training, outreach and educational services
for faculty, instructors and staff using educational technologies.
Online discussion groups (also known as bulletin boards or forums) have been around for years and may be the most promising and extensively used online tool. In contrast with other popular online communication tools such as email, chat/instant messaging, blogs, and wikis, online discussions retain a history of conversations by displaying messages in a logical structure through the use of indentation and "threading," visual cues that highlight the structure of previous conversations; in this way, it's never too late or the wrong time to join in an online discussion topic. This asynchronous nature of online discussions makes them outstanding additions to traditional classes that already have synchronous or live communication options. With teachers and students all busy and working at various times during the week, discussion groups allow everyone their own best time to review outside-of-class discussions and to contribute to the conversation, whether that be at 7am or midnight!
While discussion boards have been around for a number of years, the integration of online discussion into the traditional classroom and lecture is an on going process of adaptation. Instructors, students, and institutions of learning continue to explore and discover how discussion boards can transform traditional courses into dynamic learning spaces that reconsider the notions of class time, homework, student participation, assessment, and teacher/student engagement.
Online discussions can be transformative teaching tools since they provide students with an out-of-class, informal publishing arena where they can reflectively practice presenting various ideas, arguments, types of evidence, use of language, style, and so forth. One off-handed critique of online education is that it is shallow and quick, but online discussion groups that are well developed by teachers can lead to more thoughtful, reflective, and engaging student comments and writing because they allow for more time and less of the performance anxiety of the live classroom. In the traditional classroom, many discussion prompts are interpreted by students as: Quick, you have 2 minutes to say something intelligent in front of 30 or 300 of your peers! To get to the point where online discussions are serving teaching and learning goals, however, one has to begin working with these practical tools that must be built, managed, and fine-tuned. Keys to integrating online discussions successfully with one’s traditional course work involve:
In spite of their relatively ancient (by Internet standards) lineage, online discussion tools (bulletin boards) remain a somewhat unexplored but promising technology option for traditional teachers who want to supplement their traditional classroom with online technology. In part, the terminology of such tools as discussions and chat is somewhat misleading, suggesting an informality and narrower utility than the tools, in fact, afford. I have used the online "discussion" tool for 1/3rd credit on a final exam, where students submitted a written response to a discipline-specific assignment via the discussion tool. Online chat (which is live electronic text communication such as instant messaging and should not be confused with online discussions) employs another potentially misleading title. For example, the "chat" tool could be used for formal language practice. In the age of blogs and wikis, the older technology of discussion tools may seem passé, but with a proven track record and still-to-be-discovered possibilities, this technology should be included in every teacher's online bag of educational technology tricks.
There is an initial learning curve for any educational technology tool and the discussion tool is no exception. Many traditional courses still do not take advantage of online discussions and mainstream understanding and adoption of online discussions, may take decades of adaptation and evolution in teaching practice. The value of online discussions as a supplement to traditional teaching, however, will continue to draw new users and inspire innovations in online teaching.
How are online discussions different than face-to-face discussions and teaching environments? Online discussions are:
Many traditional instructors are afraid to try online discussions because they have heard that they are time and labor intensive. To ensure that online discussions are productive and worthy investments of a teacher's time, one needs to develop wise management strategies and become comfortable reading, responding, and manipulating student messages. In some situations a teacher might want to search, print, quote, highlight, grade, evaluate, or archive messages. These are all simple tasks that require some experience. The more teachers and students work with online discussions, the more comfortable and productive they become with the tools.
To succeed with online discussions teachers need to make sure that the online realm becomes a truly communal learning space. Online course discussions very rarely become useful "living and breathing" teaching and learning spaces without the interest, intelligence, participation, and thoughtful planning of the instructor. The engaged teacher will be sure that the online discussion space(s) offer some form of recursive communication, feedback, that expectations of behavior and collegiality are clear, that respect, tone, and productive argument are in service of academic missions, that students understand the grading or credit rubric, that roles and deadlines and minimal and maximum participation limits are understood. The teacher is always the first and most important role model in any online environment. In many situations the "best and brightest" students will be role models as well, but it will take the teacher to point out which students and which responses are outstanding and which are lacking.
In my experience the single most important indicator of success or failure with online discussions involves how well or poorly the teacher integrates online discussions into class work and course objectives and credit. Online discussions as voluntary supplemental resources almost never work. Unused and little used discussions invariably are there because the teacher told students, "Hey, we have a discussion area; just ask some questions if you want or comment on the readings." This laid back approach nearly always fails; students are too busy to bother with the online equivalent of entering an empty room with no expectations, no schedule, no credit, no value. If a teacher really wants to begin using online discussions she'll need to integrate the online discussions with real course credit and objectives. Even giving course participation credit for online comments may be too vague and aimless to be of any value to the teacher or the students. I would strongly encourage teachers to brainstorm and think of at least a half dozen focused, specific, narrow ways in which they could use an online discussion board. For instance, every new reading in a course has its own discussion board and each student is required to post only one message on the most confusing term or concept of the reading. For instance, each week of a course a new discussion board is available where students are to post a link to a current news story that ties in with any of that week's topics, sort of a current -events-style assignment that takes advantage of the breadth of the Internet and the fact that students can create hyperlinks in an online discussion posting. The more specific, limited, pointed, and interesting the online discussion expectations and guidelines, the better.
Building discussion topics for a course is like laying out a garden with many plants; you don't want to just scatter seeds in the wind, but want to think about how particular plants (discussion boards) might grow in comparison to others; you'll want to anticipate how easy or difficult the fully grown discussion topic will be to "harvest" (find, grade, print, archive). As in gardening, some of this knowledge will only develop with experience, and the first year you garden (use discussion boards) you ought to start with a few simple and dependable plants.
Here are some common types of online discussions that have proven useful for many teachers:
Lastly, an important way of thinking about the types of discussion topics you are designing is to consider when you want students to respond to online postings and when you want them to initiate postings. More dynamically, one can design a context where students adopt role playing. For example, some subset of students initiate content while another subset responds; imagine half a class posts letters to the editor representing local concerns for job creation in the community while the other half responds as representatives of environmental groups. As a teacher, begin by asking yourself what writing, communication, reseach, and intellectual skills you hope to develop in students: description, synthesis, original thought, analysis, or simply how to cite and quote a relevant article. Any and all of these scholarly and intellectual skills can be incorporated specifically into online assignments, but only if you provide the guidance and structure to the students.
Almost paradoxically, if you want to improve your traditional classroom lectures you ought to consider using online discussions before, during, and after the traditional classroom meeting time. Before to get students involved with course content and lecture topics so that they are ready when class begins, similar to the old adage that if someone has a nickel in a card game you will have their attention over those with nothing invested. By creating an online discussion that requires students to comment on the upcoming lecture topic and content, you will have forced students to prepare for the traditional class, and in an environment (online) that young students have essentially grown up with over the years. By taking the best and most interesting comments and observations from the comments before class and bringing them into your class during lecture, you will have validated online discussions as an important part of your class. When students are encouraged to follow-up with, expand upon, or review that week's course work after their face-to-face class time, then you will have truly come full circle, creating an integrated cycle of learning that combines the best of both classroom and online environments.
To sum up with some particular tips: teachers using online discussions should validate student successes, red flag problems or confusions, provide guidelines, model examples, offer feedback, and annotate and critique complicated resources and materials. Teachers can incorporate student work into their own lectures. Teachers can expose the student learning (and not learning) process. Teachers using online discussions will achieve more frequent, extensive, and detailed student feedback. Online discussions provide teachers with a time and place for modeling, observing, and coaching student processes and performance; the online environment is similar yet different enough from the real world that a smart combination of the two can create the best possible learning environment, the best of both worlds.
Discussion Board Decision Tree
by Chris Weaver of East Carolina
University
"Using Focused Web-Based Discussions to Enhance Student Interaction
and Deep Understanding" (PDF)
by Caroline Hodges Persell of New York University
"Assessment of Online Discussions"
by Leslie Bowman and George Paris
"Tips for Facilitating Online Discussions"
by Leslie Bowman and George Paris
Robert Baird teaches film and media classes and manages the CITES EdTech training and consulting programs devoted to supporting faculty use of educational technologies.
*This PowerPoint has been converted to an accessible web document using the Illinois Accessible Web Publishing Wizard for Microsoft Office.
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