next »

[bone_gal]

Hi. I'm designing a new course to teach this summer and I'm stuck trying to figure out how many discussions to include. I know it's a best practice to have many discussions in an online course (and in an online course I took as a student it was very hard to keep engaged since it had no discussions), and most of my courses have a graded discussion every week. The course I'm designing this summer is 3000 level (4000 is top undergraduate course, 1000 is intro), fully online, three credits, and will run at an accelerated pace since it's in the summer term which is shorter. Given the subject matter I will have weekly exercises (not quite a lab, but problems to solve), and I keep debating whether it's too much to have discussions as well. It seems like having a discussion would be a lot in this situation, but then I keep going back to how isolated it feels online to have no discussions.

So I'm curious to ask this group, how do you use discussions in your courses? One all the time? A few during the term? None? Any other thoughts here? Thanks!

[lucys]

Summer courses at my university are three week classes, so I don't have time for as much discussion on-line as usual. I have done either 4 or 5 discussion board forums in the past. The first one is always an introduction forum. I respond to each post welcoming students to the course and making brief comments. The others I participate in as I have time. Each post counts as a homework grade. I think it is important to have at least a few discussion forums so students can interact and feel part of a real class. Interaction between students is one area included on the instructor evaluation also.

[changinggears]

One alternative to the threaded discussion board that I have found to be extremely successful and that students respond well to is a class blog.  If you have Blackboard, it now offers a blog component in the course tools section. You can set it up so that it's a single blog that the whole class posts to or you can set it up so that individual students have their own blog but the other students can access them, read them, and comment on them.  During the summer term, I typically use a single class blog because it's easier to grade and much easier for students to keep up with.  Even during a 4-week mini-term, I usually require at least four significant posts and at least one comment on a classmate's post.  Some students enjoy the blog so much that they voluntarily exceed the minimum number of posts and comments.  I think the reason the blog works is because it is so much like the other types of social networking-type activities that they engage in every day, whereas the threaded discussion boards seem a little disjunctive in comparison.  Even with a short term and a butt-load of work to do, my students have never given me grief about the blogs (they may moan at first, but once they start doing it, most end up saying it's the most enjoyable aspect of the class).

[infopri]

I haven't taught during the summer, but when I teach (entirely online) during the academic year (14-week course, with new lectures and associated materials once each week), I start two to four discussion threads each week most weeks.  Students are not required to post in every thread or even every week, but they are expected to be "generally engaged" (which I describe in the syllabus and in the first lecture), and their posts are graded (on a combination of quantity and quality).

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

I teach discussion-oriented classes, so I typically have a single discussion per week, with multiple topics. Those discussions serve as the "classroom." But, like I said, these are discussion-oriented classes.

For your situation, which includes an accelerated class, I'll second the recommendation to consider using a blog. You could create a list of weekly blog topics and then divvy up the topics throughout the semester, so there are just a couple of blog entries for the class to read and comment on each week.

[changinggears]

I'm not sure exactly what your subject is or what type of assignments you're planning, but if it involves students accessing/reading online material, you may want to consider using a social bookmarking site like Diigo that allows students to annotate and comment on online documents.  In Diigo, you can create a class group and members can see other members' annotations/comments and respond with their own or add to what others have said.  If you required that everyone respond to the online content via Diigo, then this would kill two birds with one stone--students would not be as isolated because they would be able to interact and see other's thoughts on the course readings/assignments and it wouldn't really add that much work since they already  have to access and read the online info anyway.  I think social bookmarking is also one way to solve the problem of teaching students how to annotate and ensuring that they do so, since you can see their annotations and comment on them.

[klwilcoxon]

An important consideration is how discussions fit into the total mix.  In my experience most instructors simply add discussions on top of everything else.  Since discussions are recorded in the online environment, you should consider removing another piece, like an assignment or assessment, while adding the discussions.  Include a discussion rubric too to increase your chances of a substantive exchange.  Oh, yes, group size matters.  Larger groups tend to end at the sharing stage, while smaller groups are more likely to move through sharing to sense-making, consensus and conclusion.

[octoprof]

Zero. Well, none that are graded. Students are welcome to discuss the course material or post with questions or comments, but it's not an integral part of the course. I teach accounting and they are so neck deep in learning how to do the accounting (watching videos and demonstrations, working problems) that not much online discussion happens.