Tina,
It is great that the students are reaching out to connect with the other students to try to help them. That demonstrates that you are building that all important community aspect among your students.
Herbert Brown III
Making comments that challenge the students and force them to think will encourage discussion and participation from the whole class.
That's unfortunate! We do have specifics to satisfy the requirement. 2 replies to classmates, a minimum of one scholarly reference, citing and referencing in-text, etc. Some students have chosen not to pay attention to the requirements, while others have no problem. I have seen that the student's who do follow the requirements try and reach out to those who don't, in an attempt to help them improve.
Hello, I also thank the student for starting the discussion forum, or state that the student has brought up some interesting comments. Doing this, puts the student in a position to want to continue to engage in the discussions, I also include humor and smiles in the replies to them. It seems to have worked so far.
I generally have the students address each other by name. The reason for this is so that I can go back and find out specifically what they were commenting on. Then what I do is incorporate the reply to the to the post and address both student's (or more than one student) in order to foster a more dynamic discussion.
In the syllabus there should be specific steps that must be followed in each discussion for grading. If the student does not follow the specific steps it should reflect on their discussion grade.
This is a great challenge and online instructors need to demonstrate active engagement throughout the weekly discussions and provide diverse learning style approaches within the online classroom. I find that when you promote the online discussion through asking questions or providing supporting credible resources or articles this adds more value into the online discussion which may encourage active discussion participation from the students. It is important to make sure to assess and get to know your students' learning styles if possible through doing an initial learning style assessment prior to each course.
Someone above me mentioned this as I am sure a lot of others did too, but the key is to ask questions and require a response for the student to receive credit. Requiring a follow up or a new way to approach a topic should help to increase the conversation. I also try to encourage participation in online discussions during a resident portion of class so that they hear me talking about it a lot.
My role in discussions is to engage the student by asking a variety of questions. Substantive participation can be encouraged guiding the discussions and not dominating in a discussion forums. The strategies I use to extend learner’s thinking and keep the discussion focused on the intended outcomes is to post an article that relates to the topic or video. ~Audrey Thomas
I will always ask the student follow up questions to engage them personally.
I see "bare minimum" asynchronous discussion posts too often. My response is usually to inquire by responding with a question. Most of the time, a short, undeveloped response touches the surface of its topic but leaves several aspects of the answer untouched. I choose one that I believe will benefit the discussion and ask the student a questions that encourages them to a) elaborate, b) view the topic from a different angle, or c) offer an example or application. I've found that using undeveloped responses this way can greatly enhance the quality of the discussion because I get to choose what aspect of the topic to ask about. This means that I can ask Suzie to develop her answer to one aspect of the topic while asking Jim to elaborate on another aspect, thus making sure that the overall conversation includes a broader spectrum of ideas on the topic than it would otherwise.
I have clear expectations for the discussions. Telling them how often they must post and specifically changing the content each time so they will engage on different levels and topics each week so that the discussions coincide with their assignments. So, that it flows and the students begin to see the big picture and also that interacting helps the other students learn as well.
Sarah
Rob,
That is exactly how I behave with the short responder. I ask to elaborate on more points.
I sometimes feel like an dentist extracting a tooth...
I, too, find that when questions are geared to students sharing a personal experience that exemplifies the issue discussed, it promotes responses from other students. A great camaraderie seems to develop among the students.
Absolutely, I agree that large numbers of learners disengage themselves from the DB forum immediately they post their required number of posts. Usually, I attempt to keep them interested by replying to each of their posts and posing questions that will require additional responses from the student.
Kenjiro,
I like this idea. I always play the devils advocate to get students to think deeper about ALL sides of an issue. Sometimes they get frustrated, but much deeper learning takes place.
Herbert Brown III
In the discussion forum I like to play the Devil's Advocate. I do this by supporting the harder or generally perceived "wrong answer" to the post. This gets the students fired up and they start really commenting and thinking about the other side of the argument.
There are times that student's need to be redirected to the topic with a probitive question, other times a student may need a praise for their original answer and a question like, "What about if this...?" I use critical thinking questions and sometimes questions that cause the student to ask me questions, sometimes for clarification and sometimes to see if they can stump me about the topic of discussion. I give them food for thought, and encourage them to give me some food for thought too. I try to make it as interactive as I can.
Getting students to post a more substantive post can be difficult. It is necessary to constantly monitor the discussion boards, and you need to post questions back to the students so that they are responding back to you. By you posting questions back to the students you can keep the discussion focused on the intended outcomes. This is also a good expectation to state at the beginning of each class regarding discussion boards the need for students to respond. At the school where I teach students have to respond at lease 3 different times, it makes it a little bit more easy to respond to their first post with a question so they can keep on track.
Heather
Discussions and course work should always be challenging and I make it evident that there is a high expectation level for student performance in the course. I like to engage the students by asking thought provoking and open-ended questions that challenge thinking, allowing them to express their opinions and creativity to their fellow classmates. When students know that I will challenge them with compelling questions they perform at higher levels and are more inclined to actively participate in the discussion because they know I am aware of their participation. I find that for students with different learning styles, this empowers them to feel more comfortable expressing themselves and contributing to group discussions. With positive reinforcement from interactions on the discussion board, an increase in participation usually occurs, therefor creating an enjoyment in participating in the course.
