next »

[annmarie]

Help.  I will be teaching online.  I have materisls more or less prepared, and will encourage participation

How do I start good threads for the discussion board?  The students are probably not accustomed to online courses.

[larryc]

You require the students to start the threads. Give them some guidelines (for example, they must back up any opinion with specific facts) and when someone posts a good discussion starter make an announcement to draw attention to the post.  Good luck!

[zharkov]

The key is not to ask yes or no questions, but those which require a more complete response.  For starters, you ask student to introduce themselves.  Also, look over the meet and greet and the book discussion areas here for inspiration.

For example, an econ question can be:  What is the source of your hometown's wealth?  Where do people work?  What jobs do they have?  How is the sources of wealth different today than they were 100 or 200 years ago?

Twenty people will have 20 different responses to a question like that.

[lassboni]

You require the students to start the threads. Give them some guidelines (for example, they must back up any opinion with specific facts) and when someone posts a good discussion starter make an announcement to draw attention to the post.  Good luck!

Not necessarily. I have introduced many a topic in business wriitng online courses and posted on the college's bulletin board. The students' replies, and their extension of the threads. factored into their grades.

Also, make sure that the questions are thought-provoking and adhere to the Socratic Method...no pansy y/n responses.

[expatinuk]

I have an initial question each week...  I also have an exercise they do each week that's related to the topic. They have to refer to the exercise.

My students average 12 posts a week.

[lassboni]

Will you be doing any synchronous activities?

It is difficult to get everyone online on the same day and at the same time, but I did have about 85% cooperation, and we were able to clarify several threads of the course, along with a few tasks I had given them.

We also hob-nobbed a couple of prior-weeks "hot-button" bulletin board issues in the business world that had been sent adrift in cyberspace.

[finallyfullprof]

I put up a "lecture post" each week to give them guidance in their reading. I also give them criteria for how to respond to their readings. For example, I don't allow summaries and require them to do some sort of analysis or application of what they are learning.  A minimum word count also helps cut down the "me too" or "good post" responses.

[annmarie]

Will you be doing any synchronous activities?

It is difficult to get everyone online on the same day and at the same time, but I did have about 85% cooperation, and we were able to clarify several threads of the course, along with a few tasks I had given them.

We also hob-nobbed a couple of prior-weeks "hot-button" bulletin board issues in the business world that had been sent adrift in cyberspace.

I wil actually be taking with them (with a mike and headset) two mornings each week.  I will lecture for short blocks (10-15 minutes) and then try to get input.  I am used to lecturing but am trying to restructure. 

I also have homework assignments and a project for them, as I might in a regular classroom.

I hope that I will be able to elicit discussion somehow.

[nardo]

Learn to wait.  It takes longer to type than to talk, and then posting can be held up by connection speeds or other technological wonders.

Learn to wait.  Teach others to wait.

[magistra]

Think of it as half essay, half in-class discussion.  Give open-ended, multi-part question(s) which must be answered by a certain day/time.  Give requirements -- proper grammar, spelling (this will kill you if you let it), word counts, backing up arguments, etc. -- your basic essay with a little persuasive writing assignment in it.  Make these posts part of your grading system.  You can be flexible -- one long and two short posts a week, or three long, or two short, answer one of three questions, answer all, whatever you want.  You can also require that they have at least one post a week that is a substantive response (and oh, do make sure you require that they be 'substantive', or you'll get lots of "I agree".)  This keeps the dialog going.  You can also require that one question be done by Wednesday, the response is due by Friday, etc. to help keep them coming back to the boards.  I give the odd comment to add information and let them know I'm reading, but I mostly stay out of it. 

Posting will likely be an important part of your grading -- be sure you give requirements, a rubric, tell them where there grades are coming from, etc.  They know how exam and paper grades work, but this will be new to them, and serves an important function for many web classes.

Don't forget to set up a 'free' thread where they can discuss miscellaneous topics unrelated to the discussion questions like a tangential question, problems with the paper, etc.

Ditto what everyone else said, too!

A favorite website to link to: Guide to Grammar and Writing

[msoexpert]

Just asking students to participate in discussions and initiate them isn't enough in my opinion, and I've been teaching online for several years now.  Depending on the class, and I teach a wide variety of subjects across multiple departments, students may feel that discussions aren't relevant or necessary.

So what I always try to do is not give them discussions just for the sake of it, but rather give them ones where there often isn't a "right or wrong" answer.  This way, they have to think and form opinions which develop those critical thinking skills.  And they have to back them up with sound reasoning.

In other words, they simply cannot post something like "ditto."  It has to be more of what I would want in a classroom setting.  And I let me students know that they are graded on the content of their postings, not just the fact that they post!

[cs_prof]

I have been teaching online since year 2000. My understanding of how online board works has gradually evolved and here is what I have come to. One of the challenges is getting everything organized to prevent the mess buildup that after a while is difficult to sort out, especially student postings are being graded. 

I start delivering any online course with creating two threads titled Announcements and Q&A. In the first I place general info for the class; students do not post there anything. The second is for raising long standing or general issues concerning the whole course. Students are allowed to create there whatever threads they like.

If I receive in email a student question is non-private and may likely be interesting for anybody else in this class, instead of answering, I invite this student to post her question to Q&A. Then I post the answer. This reduces my unnecessary email communication; many students are aware of this from my previous courses and are normally using Q&A right away.

Every week, I create a 'formal' discussion for the mark. I create N threads in it by copy-pasting N discussion questions from the dedicated section of the weekly assignment. Students address these questions by following some formal rules designed with the purpose of creating equal opportunities for contributing to the discussion and earning a grade. Without such rules, some smart early bird can pick all the worms; this student would be able both earn the credit and leave nothing to her peers to say, thus depriving them of the chance to earn a good mark. Hence 'formal'. The typical discussion title is 'Unit ZZ formal discussion'.

Sometimes I also create weekly 'informal' discussions titled like 'Unit ZZ Q&A' or 'Unit ZZ Problem Line'. This is just a collaboration tool for resolving small issues. Most frequently students post here questions about the weekly assignments or say, remind me about that I had forgotten to reset the date on the assignment drop box (yes, sometimes this does happen).

Still I am not sure about the latter category, as it results in too many discussions in the whole course.  Many weekly Problem Lines are staying unused (which indicates that this part of the course is presumably well designed).  To reduce the number of discussions, I practice including a 'Question-0' thread in each weekly 'formal' discussion. This question invites students to raise issues regarding current assignment. Those who answer questions posted by their peers may receive a bonus credit against their mark for the weekly discussion.

Encouraging online students helping each other is the problem that I have not completely solved yet. My students seem to be reluctant to render help by posting their suggestions whenever an issue is raised in Q&A. I normally promise granting a bonus towards the final grade for rendering this help. Only 1 to 3 geeks participate in the whole class of say, 25. The rest appear to be expecting spoon-fed. My goal is getting involved at least half of the class. It appears to be tough.

I would appreciate thoughts and suggestions on what I have written above. My system is continuously evolving and I hope that some forumites have their own ideas to share.

[cs_prof]

Discussion question design is a key issue.

If you want just get involved in the online discussion as many students as possible, the posted question must be open, without obvious answer. Possibly even controversial. The discussion thread might be getting very long in such case. The issue for the instructor is deciding how to grade the student's contribution. In many cases the number of postings made by students is the only criterion. The instructor just counts student messages and puts the grade. The shortcoming is that some, if not many, student postings might be just pointless.
 
If the instructor wants to count only 'good' or 'relevant' postings, the situation is getting tough. With say, just 5 required postings in the weekly discussion in the class of 30, one has to open and read 150 messages and decide on their relevance and if students do not repeat the ideas posted by others. In the past, grading such discussion was taking up to 3 hours of my time per week. With more than 10 postings per student, it is getting even less manageable.

Yet I found the technique that reduces my workload. I require my students always modifying the subject line whenever they are making a posting. By no means the subject line must look like "Re: Previous Message Subject". Rather, I require that the subject line must be a concentrated expression of the meaning conveyed by the student's message body. Thus I encourage my students learn how to compress meaning.  And for me this creates the opportunity not opening most postings for the purpose of grading them. Subject line is the sufficient evidence of the contribution this student has made.
Students need time to get accustomed to this rule. In week 1, up to half of the students may neglect it; I gently remind them that the rule must be followed. If this happens in Week 2, I warn the offenders that their postings might be disqualified. In Week 3 I just remove the postings with wrong subject lines and post an announcement for the class or send private email to the offender. It comes to the removal rather infrequently, anyway. 

In some courses, it does not make much sense offering students all open, wide-scope discussion questions. This also depends on learning objectives. If in my programming course I want students get feel comfortable with say, Java Application Programming Interface (a huge online repository of technical knowledge), it is pointless to offer general and/or controversial questions. My typical questions are like: "Discuss the design of class java.util.Scanner; in your reply, please address only one class member per posting." This encourages students to: (1) read all postings made by other students in this discussion and (2) read the documentation and pick the Java class member that has not been addressed yet by anybody else. As there are some 20 members in this Java class, there are some 20 possible correct answers. Because the expected answers are almost trivial, it is easy to grade them. The learning objective of getting familiar with particular Java class is accomplished; this helps students work on the weekly programming assignment that is based exactly on this Java class.

Questions of this type amount so about 1/2 to 2/3 of the whole discussion question pool of the week. The rest questions cold be more open like: "Compare and contrast classes java.util.Arrays and java.util.Collections. Apply only one comparison criterion in your answer. Please begin your message with explaining the criterion used." Besides learning Java, by discussing such questions students learn the concept of criterion and develop analytical skills.

A question designed like this, on one hand, offers enough flexibility for choosing of how to address it by picking the right criterion. On the other hand, the expected answers are making a well-srtuctured thread that is easy to be evaluated by the instructor.

The downside is that the discussion threads tend to be getting very short; there is no much to talk about. It is very rare case when some student dares to question the way how some her peer had addressed the discussion question posted by the instructor. The title 'discussion' is even hardly applicable to what is going on. I wonder if this is good or not. Students are indeed learning what is required, yet their initiative in such setting is presumably discourged. Probably, the reason is that the school where I work is neither MIT nor Princeton. With smarter and more creative students things presumably would be different.

I would appreciate suggestions and comments.


   

[expatinuk]

I would appreciate suggestions and comments.

One of the FIRST things I tell my online students is not not post long messages since no one will read them.

A BBS is a conversational environment, although it is text based, it's still designed for short conversations. Long posts just mean that you're talking to the wall.

[cs_prof]

I would appreciate suggestions and comments.

One of the FIRST things I tell my online students is not not post long messages since no one will read them.

A BBS is a conversational environment, although it is text based, it's still designed for short conversations. Long posts just mean that you're talking to the wall.

I agree. In my courses, I do discourage students making long postings. My messages are the attempt to summarize what and how I have done so far. Kind of tutorial. Next time I will probably be able to write it shorter.

It would be interesting to see your own explanation of the basics for a newbie like OP here.
I am interested in getting to know other's experiences with managing discussions in online courses. In particular, how formal the discussion should be. I would appreciate your ideas.