By: Stephanie Maher Palenque and Meredith DeCosta, PhD in Online Education

Faculty use asynchronous discussions to extend and enhance instructional practices in the online classroom. It is widely reported that online discussions play an integral role in facilitating students’ learning, as well as fostering dialogue, critical thinking, and reflective inquiry (Kayler & Weller, 2007; Morris, Finnegan, & Sz-Shyan, 2005). Despite faculty’s knowledge that discussion forums can serve as a useful learning tool, online discussions are not easy to establish and manage.

The Science of Online Discussions
Our working knowledge regarding distance education suggests that productive discussions are essential to learning in an asynchronous online environment. Online discussions effectively take the place of face-to-face classroom discussion. It has even been suggested that, if well facilitated, online discussions may allow for more in-depth and thoughtful learning than is possible in a face-to-face setting (Hawkes, 2006). Gao, Wang, and Sun (2009) contend that in a productive online discussion, it is essential for participants to embrace the following four dispositions:

Discuss to comprehend. Cognitive efforts such as questioning, interpreting, elaborating, or relating information to prior knowledge should be the focus in any productive discussion. According to cognitive psychologists, students are more likely to understand and retain information when they participate in these cognitive activities (Gao, Zhang, & Franklin, 2013). Discuss to critique. Conflicting perspectives of students should be developed and examined in any productive discussion. Knowledge acquisition originates from cognitive conflicts from social interactions. These conflicts not only occur between students but also between an individual’s existing knowledge and new information encountered in discussions with other students. The real learning takes place when students re-examine their original positions on an issue and explore new resolutions. (Gao, Zhang, & Franklin, 2013).Discuss to construct knowledge. Gao, Zhang, and Franklin (2013) suggest that a productive discussion should offer students ample opportunities for interaction and collaboration with classmates. From a social constructivist perspective, individuals do not learn in isolation. It is only through this interaction that a richer understanding of the topic will take place. Discuss to share. Productive learning takes place when students are part of a larger, active community. A community of learners, which represents the ideal discussion forum environment, is one in which students embrace a sense of belonging, support each other, develop shared values, and enjoy their shared identity (Gao, Zhang, & Franklin, 2013).

The Art of Online Discussions
Along with science comes its partner: art. People who aren’t familiar with online teaching and learning will often ask, “Is it possible to mirror intellectual conversations held with students in a ground classroom in the online environment?” and “Can we engage in the subtleties of face-to-face dialogue in the online classroom?” Our answer is, “Yes.” Although students in the online classroom are separated by time and space, thoughtfully formulated discussions can close this gap. The following represent strategies to transform you into an online discussion forum artist:

Touch all students in the forum. In most conversations, we acknowledge all participants, even those who are not speaking, by making eye contact, nodding, and responding as needed. The same applies to an online discussion. All students contribute in some way to the forum during a course; it is the teacher’s responsibility to acknowledge their efforts. Recognition can include a congratulatory post, a note of thanks, or a question or scenario designed to further thinking. Know what each student needs. What students say (and do not say) in the forum communicates their comfort level in the course. A student who actively participates in the forums may need the instructor to elevate thinking by artfully challenging perceptions and impressions. A student who expresses confusion about the content in the forums may benefit from a Classroom Assessment Technique (Angelo & Cross, 1993) to help the instructor gauge the point of confusion and reveal gaps in the student’s current knowledge. Be mindful of possibilities. Postings are not one size fits all. As online instructors, we risk hindering progress when we only award credit for posts that are lengthy, particularly at the undergraduate level. We always try not to penalize students who opt to take a brief turn in the conversation as long as the post is substantive, of merit, and adds to the discussion. Know when to lead and when to be led. There are times we want to guide the discussion and times when we should allow students to carry the weight. One common mistake instructors make in the online classroom is to attempt to drive every conversation. Occasionally students may need to take charge in order to learn the material.

Science and art are natural partners – both are a means of investigation of the world around us. When instructors make a concerted effort to balance both the science and art of facilitating a productive, enriching online discussion among a community of learners, the rewards are abundant.

References:
Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Gao, F., Zhang, T., & Franklin, T. (2013). Designing asynchronous online discussion environments: Recent progress and possible future directions. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(3), 469-483.

Hawkes, M. (2006). Linguistic discourse variables as indicators of reflective online interaction. American Journal of Distance Education, 20(4), 231-244.

Kayler, M. & Weller, K. (2007). Pedagogy, self-assessment, and online discussion groups. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 10(1), 136–147.

Morris, K.V., Finnegan, C. & Sz-Shyan, W. (2005). Tracking student behavior, persistence, and achievement in online courses. Internet and Higher Education, 8(3), 221–231.

Stephanie Maher Palenque, MA and Meredith DeCosta, PhD teach at Grand Canyon University.

? Magna Publications. All Rights Reserved.

Tags: asynchronous discussions, discussion board assignments, online discussion groups, tips for online faculty

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By: Rob Kelly in Online Education

In small online courses, instructors have the luxury of participating in frequent personal interactions with students in online discussions. But doing this with more than 15 students can be difficult. Fortunately, there are ways to maintain instructor presence and participation in online discussions without becoming overwhelmed. In an interview with Online Classroom, Heidi Ash, online program director for the Department of Health Studies at Texas Woman’s University, offered the following ways to address this issue:

Reduce the number of discussions. A common mistake online instructors make is trying to fit too many online discussions into a course—often one per week. This schedule does not allow enough time for students to process what they’re learning in order to be able to contribute meaningful content to the discussion boards, and it creates a workload problem for the instructor in terms of keeping up with the discussion and providing grades/feedback to students, Ash says.

Rather than holding weekly discussions, Ash designs her courses so that each module, which lasts between two and four weeks, includes just one discussion. “I teach writing and literature. Having a new topic to think about, to read about, to digest and discuss and then do an assignment on every week—I don’t think allows enough time for students to actually accomplish any real, deep learning. That’s why I tend to set up my courses a little bit differently,” Ash says. “It gives me as the instructor more time to read those discussion forums and respond to them. It gives students more time to read and digest the material, think about what they really want to say, and post without having to feel rushed by getting things out every week on a certain deadline.”

Post discussion summaries. Rather than trying to respond to each student’s posts, create a post that summarizes the discussion and acknowledges their contributions.

As Ash reads through the discussion board she copies quotes from students (with attributions) and pastes them into a Word document she has open on a second screen. She uses the Word document to help craft the summary post and saves it as a reference to keep track of which students she has acknowledged in the discussion. She recommends positively acknowledging each student on the discussion at least once during the course, providing a personal touch. “I think students respond well to that,” Ash says. “I have not gotten the sense that they are upset that I am not talking specifically just to them.”

The discussion summary also provides the opportunity to rein in a discussion that has gone off in the wrong direction.

Use groups. If it’s a large course, you can simply divide students into groups so that they engage only within the group. “When I do groups, I typically have them in the same group throughout the semester. … I typically get the best discussion results with students who have had time to grow familiar with each other,” Ash says.

Another technique is to have students collaborate within their groups on a message to post to the main discussion board. “If you have 25 students in a course and split them into groups of five, you end up having only five discussion posts on your main forum rather than 25. So that will cut down some on your reading and grading, and it also creates yet another level of engagement for [students] to go through before posting to the discussion forum,” Ash says.

This collaborative approach to discussion groups can be used for jigsaw activities, where each group addresses a different aspect of a topic. For example, in a discussion on Madame Bovary, one group might research the author’s biographical information, one might look at thematic elements, and another might consider the historical context and then post to the main discussion forum. “So you can take a lot of different aspects and put them together. Instead of everyone posting in the main discussion forum on the same topic, you have them all bringing together different parts of this topic to the table to talk about.”

Provide grading rubrics and examples of exemplary posts. Different discussions have different purposes and the grading scheme and rubrics should reflect these differences. Ash recommends that discussion count for at least 30 percent of the overall grade; however, not every discussion needs to be graded. “Sometimes you want students to basically talk to each other, and it doesn’t necessarily matter if they stay on topic. Early in the semester you need to have some kind of situation where you get them talking, get them to know each other so that later on they can work together on a discussion you can grade,” Ash says.

Depending on the situation, the rubric may be simply—did the student post? For more complex discussion board assignments, the rubric may call for students to use proper grammar and cite sources. “Just like you would in a [face-to-face] classroom, you have to determine what you want your students to get out of [the discussion] and how it plays into the course’s learning objectives. That helps you decide whether you’re going to grade it or how strongly you’re going to grade it,” Ash says.

Ash recommends making rubrics clear for each discussion because while the platform is the same, the expectations may not be the same for all discussions. To alert students to the different expectations, Ash recommends using boldface or another visual indication that the expectations are different from the previous discussion and simply stating things such as, “This isn’t the same as the discussion you had last time,” or “Be sure to look at this because I’m going to be looking for different things.”

Early on in a course it helps to provide examples of exemplary and poor posts and explain what distinguishes them. Ash uses a “hands-on” approach at the beginning of a course, modeling good posts, asking questions, and complimenting students on their good posts. “I may have to do a little more work at the beginning of the semester, but typically by the end of the semester they understand it.”

Excerpted from Managing Online Discussions, Online Classroom, 13.2 (2013): 3,5. ? Magna Publications. All Rights Reserved.

Tags: asynchronous discussion forums, discussion board assignments, discussion board rubrics, online course design, tips for online faculty

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