The effect of discussion board structure on student interaction
In teaching for a number of schools, I have found that the way in which discussion boards are structured have a significant effect on student interaction.
For instance, it is the requirement of one school that students must post an initial response to the DB by Thursday and respond to two other students by Monday (in a Tues-Mon class week) in each of two discussion threads for each week. I am required to respond to every student post between the two posts by the end of the week.
Another school I teach for requires the same student participation (in a Mon-Sun class week with the initial post due by Wednesday.) I am required to make at least one post on five separate days during the week to each thread, but there is no requirement for responding to individual students.
For which of the two would you expect more student interaction?
I have found that student interactivity is significantly greater in the second scenario and as a result I try to structure my responses in the first scenario along the same lines while meeting the criteria for the school. Interestingly, this does not seem to have much of an effect in increasing student interactivity at the first school.
I guess this is leading me to a question, which is do you think that students at a given school are conditioned to participate in a certain way? If so, how can we change this pattern of participation?
Rhonda,
Maybe I should assign that in one of my graduate courses for a research study. It would be a good study, "Determining factors of quality and effective discussions in online courses" There is still a lot of research that needs to be done in the field of online teaching and learning. Quality discussions in online courses are vitally important for the "interactive" element of a course.
Herbert Brown III
It would be a great study to which school do what in the discussion board and most importantly, which schools are most effective in terms of student learning.
Hi Donald,
I found your post to be interesting for a number of reasons. One of them being the way an instructor sets up the discussion platform or thread. This is where the participation starts and if the initial set up is unclear or not formatted properly students are less likely to participate as required. Each institution will have a similar policy on the number of post a student and instructor are to make each week. In my opinion I do not think it is necessary to respond to every single student. However, instructors should have a requirement. Reason is because in a traditional classroom setting you show up. In an online setting you have to show up in a different way and one of them is by guiding the discussion, observing struggling students, and ensuring the class stays on topic.
Thank you,
Compreca
