Responding to threaded discussion
In order to maintain presence in the classroom, do you think an instructor should respond to posts by every student?
Darrin,
I understand the conundrum. I have yet to find any reliable research to support either practice. Many "experts" have many opinions about the discussion boards. I have seen only anecdotal evidence of the positive impact on increased performance concerning learning objectives when the DB is optimized. Many instructors use individualized interaction (emails, phone conferences, assignment feedback, etc.) with the students to positively impact cognitive performance. The 'softer' (affective) objectives like student perception of the instructor, liking the class, etc. seem to be impacted a bit more, but I have not found unbiased research that links (in a causal manner) a positive impact of well implemented discussion boards to increased student performance or retention. It seems to be built on conjecture and opinion, mostly because "it makes sense." The number of postings by an instructor is very arbitrary and has no significant causal impact. Only some anecdotal (uncontrolled, non-scientific) correlations have indicated any gain.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Dr. Vaillancourt,
Some leaders in online education do believe that Instructors should remain on the sidelines in discussion threads and not "interfere" with the game. Our school does indicate how often and on how many different days Instructors must post to the discussion threads each week.
It can be a difficult line to walk, however, as sometimes Instructors may get pulled into not only critiquing student posts but actually "grading" them on the public forum. They may use the DB forum as a dual-edged sword, so to speak, by satisfying the DB posting policy in addition to completing the grading requirement.
Grace,
Your rationale is commendable and you are absolutely correct about the importance of modeling desired behavior. Additionally, some instructors find they are able to address every student posting by using a summative approach. Answering components of multiple student posts within a single post can allow support for each student while not imposing large numbers of postings by the teacher. This can help maintain the teachers position of "guide on the side" and not overwhelm the discussion posting by having the large majority of posts coming from the instructor.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Marshall,
Many educators established the expectation that the discussion platform is primarily for student interaction with the instructor being in the "guide on the side" to keep the discussion on track with strategically placed responses.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
I do. I think that is time consuming however it shows the student that you are actively engaged and care enough to have read his or her post and respond to it substantively - in the same way you are asking them to do. So it is modeling behavior as well as creating an atmosphere of strong interaction between you and your students. It also provides positive feedback and steering them in the right direction and encouraging them to avoid the pitfalls.
A instructor may not be able to reply to every response, but the main response from a student should be answered and enciyraged to follow up with a response to you, and encourage the dialogue to continue.
Austin,
I understand and I have experienced it first hand. Be patient and realize that online instruction is still in the 'alchemy' stage. Learning analytics are on the horizon, but still have a steep climb ahead. It will come. Until then, we instructors will need to teach according to our knowledge and skill as instructors, while we maintain institutional standards that may not do anything more than create and extra set of numbers to track. These endeavors to assist instructors in classroom management are often counterproductive because of unintended consequences. Most human endeavors go through this phase.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Dr. Vaillancourt,
Your recommendation is very realistic and the ideal approach. However, some schools actually dictate the frequency, days and number of responses from instructor. Some even use less experienced analysts to evaluate instructor's adherence and comments leading to micro-management with negative outcome.
Austin Umezurike
Austin,
I think it heavily depends on the combination of curriculum design for that class and instructor's teaching style. Many effective instructors do not respond to every student's posts each week. They, instead, respond in more generalized statements to keep the student-to-student discussion as the main focus by not having an overwhelming number of posts from the instructor. The instructor's generalized posts may often include positive references to individual student contributors, which provides feedback to the students without creating an individual post on the forum for each student.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
