I ask students questions related to the assignments but will add facts or omit facts to see if they will change their mind, can they be persuaded to switch viewpoints as new information arises.
Mike,
Open ended questions do provide us, as instructors, with much more feedback. Nice job.
In my paralegal classes, I assign cases for the students to brief. I first give them an opportunity to choose the case before assigning them. I have found that asking students to "pair up" in an on line environment is problematic. When I respond to their briefs, I always ask them open ended questions to "get them to think".
Kimberly,
Excellent. You are connecting what they are learning to the real world of work. Nice job.
One thing I like to do personally is post things from our field that are not necessarily related to the specific discussion question that they are being graded on. I will find live job postings, sample resumes, anything that will get them excited about the future in the field to keep them looking at the bigger reason they are here. :)
Dennis,
You are right. You've taken a skill you learned in the F2F classroom and transferred it to the online environment. Excellent.
One thing I do in my classes is ask questions directed to students who post either non-substantive comments or incomplete post in a discussion To me it is similar to being in a physical classroom and specifically calling on the wallflowers.
In my messages I always start by thanking them for their post and then politely asking them to expand on some aspect of their message.
Cheers, Dennis
Russell,
Good technique. The students are familiar with a regular F2F classroom, so they should be able to envision the classroom as "real." Just make sure that the responses on posts are quality. Some schools set a minimum, but don't check the quality. For example, does "Right on!" count as one of the two reponses to a post? Thanks!
Traci,
I encourage my students to think of our virtual discussions as if we were in a real classroom. I stress interactivity versus simple activity. What is interactivity? With interactive conversations, we talk both to and then respond to folks. So, on the boards, I have the students not only post their main posts and two responses to classmates (two's the required minimum set by my school), but then also to respond to classmates who post to their work. I stress it's important to thank our classmates for taking the time to read our work and to post a response.
I also require that our textbook be used as a reference for each main post and highly recommend other research be used.
I try to model both interactivity and substantive posts by posting on the board frequently. Sometimes students are surprised to see me responding to their work with comments, suggested reference material, or questions.
Hope you find this helpful,
Dr. Faulk
Cheryl,
Right. It depends on the purpose of the assignment and what you are expecting the students to do. It's good to mix it up a bit having some discussion and have some defense of statements. Thanks.
I think this is a really important question because I know that I have been very frustrated with the responses that I see to main posts. I've started wondering if this has to do with the types of discussion assignments that are assigned. I think if the questions with the assignment encourage discussion, then the discussions will be better. I have just starting having my students write blog posts (for a different course) that are based on research, but are making a strong opinion. The comments to the posts are excellent because these students have to respond to the argument of the post. Many times the DBs are not asking the students to make an argument, they just are expected to answer a questions or questions and therefore it is hard to develop any type of good questions based on just an answer to a question. I hope this clear. What do you think?
Traci,
I provide examples of good and bad substantive posts and I have a rubric to grade their posts. If they're not substantive, no points are earned. Works for me.
