Andrea,
I agree that the students need something meaningful to discuss to engage the discussion group. I would go one more step and suggest that we need to try to design our discussions with enough openness in the question to allow them freedom to connect their personal life experiences as they directly relate to the content. The more students connect on a personal level with the course content, the more motivated they will be to learn it and engage it.
Herbert Brown III
In order to achieve greater participation, instructor participation is a must. Students expect it. Strategiues to better eengage students beyond the bare minimum including giving the students something to talk about. Too often I have seen discussion board threads that are assignments and have little or nothing to do with discussion.
Asking a student follow up questions is a great idea. Also, requiring the students to post three comments per week to that week's post works well. The first post is in response to the instructor's question. Then the students are required to post two additional comments to their classmates' initial posts.
This is a very hard thing to do when you are dealing with avoidant students, competitive students and dependent students.
You need to make the discussion topics interesting. Add a little flare. If the topic is boring you will only get the minimum post from most of these students. Use your imagination!
I view my role in discussions as dual - as a monitor and also a content expert. I think to maintain the flow and keep to topic the students need parameters to follow and I am responsible for ensuring that those parameters are met. As the content expert I must not only encourage participation but ensure that the facts are correct regarding the topic at hand. Encouraging substantive participation is accomplished with not only responding to student posts but asking additional questions for them to respond to. To keep them focused I include rubrics that say when the initial discussion has to be posted and then that subsequent replies must be on different days to encourage them to read more of their classmates posts and further the conversation.
I agree that follow up questions can be an effective tool to keep the discussion going.
The main roles I believe instructors serve within threaded discussion are as a mediator, and as well a standard of example, and a think think if you will. As the instructor should always post informative and substantive post this will permit examples of structure and facilitate the initiation to follow by example as necessary. To extend the thinking process we would always post questions to provide a platform for which related ideals may be introduced to carry the conversation - the think tank. As necessary to ensure the thread is kept focused questions that query how a student believes his or her posts relates to the topic may be posed. From my experience responses have been typically focused, but not always substantive. Perhaps the course grade should be dependent to a larger percent of the course grade?
Colleen,
Plagiarism is a real problem for all institutions I am glad you take a strong stance against it - I do the same. Regarding the students regurgitating material from other posts, could you require them to be me "reflective" with their own personal experiences and how the material connects with or reinforces their own ideas or experience and make them provide specific details about their personal experiences. This way they have to provide their own personal element to the post and it makes it more difficult to regurgitate. It also shows that they understand the concepts enough that they can "apply" them to their life experiences.
Herbert Brown III
I compliment students for insightful posts. Also, I pose additional questions to students as I read posts.
I struggle with the best way to handle students who seem to be regurgitating ideas from previous posts. In these situations, I will ask the student a question about the post to make sure they have put thought into the concept.
I also had problems last quarter with students plagiarizing answers by using search engines, and copying and pasting the results. I sent a private message to the students explaining why they were receiving no points for the response.
Hello, Everyone,
My role will be to develop engaging discussion topics, to keep the discussions focused and on topic. I will reward students for participating by requiring participation and grading participation on a weekly basis, providing feedback so that the students know how to improve, if needed. I will use Socratic techniques to encourage the learners to delve more deeply into the course material.
Janet
The same problem we can have it on face to face environment. We have learners that only want to "get the grade" or pass the class and our role is to encourage them to interact and really learn. We can use questions that will force them to give extra thinking, feedback to their response (giving them our opinion and expecting to give us a response) and also we can evaluate their interactions as a part of the participation grade.
Many of our students will do that as part of their learning process, as active learners, but we need to take the challenge with those who at the beginning just don't care or only want to pass the course.
I too find that the smaller the class size, the more difficult it is for students to continually engage in an asynchronous learning environment. I have been a facilitator and instructor for some time and the avoidant students in an asynchronous environment are extremely difficult to reach. I have sent early notifications, provided information for assistance, called them and even got their counselors involved but some just refuse to do the work or ask for help. So how do you fix someone like this? I hate to fail anyone but there must be some type of effort as I wonder why the student is even taking the class? I regularly engage the class and let them know that I am there for them; I normally ask questions from the answers they provide which helps them think deeper about the topic or chapter of discussion for the week. I seek their open answers and opinions as well as any experience pertaining to the topic as this seems to help with the conversation and keeps us on topic.
It is difficult to keep students engage into the discussion forum. Most only post the minimum, however do you have those students that want to be engaged. Trying to ask more questions to the students reply posts, is one way I try to get the students to post more. The school I teach for requires students to post on 3 separate days, so that does seem to help, so that they are required to be in the discussion at least three dates. It is very difficult to keep students engaged. It also depends on the students within the class.
Lori Zander
Hi Jared,
I agree! Asking students questions are a great way to keep the discussion going. I also like to point out something they said that was good. This helps with their confidence. Sometimes I will add a link to a video or something that will help to get a response from the student.
Pam
I find the more I evince an active presence in the course room (without dominating the DB), the more students respond. If the learning community fosters mutual respect and you can keep the dialogue exciting and informative for the student helps. I also make it explicit in the faculty expectations that posting a minimum requirement of responses is not conducive to their learning and that I want to see full, active engagment. At mid-week I post thought provokers that rekindle the DB discussion.
I believe my role in discussions is to be the motivator, facilitator, and instructor. From my experience, if a discussion is interesting, students will participate. For example, I post an announcement each week about the discussion. Some of my tricks is to use a current event, case study, or a story. For example, I will post an announcement saying “come join this discussion early this week and help me solve ‘The Mystery of the Absent Leader†Next, I would add the details of the mystery in the first post linking the content of the discussion and using the discussion questions.
Each discussion I add a motivational post early in the week, add critical thinking questions and then have students summarize the content.
Another tip is to use student names and respond to posts at least 5 times a week. An example would be “You make a good point Mary about….I noticed Same and Ima also provided these insights…†After using the names and summarizing the content, I ask students a question…â€Who can …?â€
I believe the more I am in a discussion actively posting, the more students interact starting from the first day to the last.
Some students do post at the last minute and always will. However, I think the more interactions and interest I provide, the students will follow suit and see the need to interact.
Although this is an area that I have had the most difficulty, through reading posts on this forum, I have learned valuable information on how to improve my role in discussions. Usually, I will post an initial welcome to the unit post and give some suggestions on how to be successful on the unit. I also post some helpful information concerning the unit topic(s) throughout the week, but I realize this is not enough to encourage substantive participation.
Jared,
Thank you very much for your posts. Follow-up questions are an excellent way to keep the discussion going. However, I also want to see the student respond to other students. That is why I will also incorporate the other students posts when responding to students.
Thanks
Jim
Herbert,
Thank you very much for this question. Student participation in discussion boards is a real issue. As you have stated, many students tend to focus on only completing the minimum required posts. I have found that the best way to engage students is to respond to their post. However, this can be very time consuming in a course with a lot of students.
In this response, I provide the student affirmation of their effort as well as an additional question or thought to consider. This usually leads the student to post further responses. I also like to direct students to other student’s posts that they would find interesting or informative.
While it is beneficial to the student to reply to one of my posts, I feel that the real power of the discussion board happens when students respond to each other.
Thanks
Jim
I believe that is a good strategy to make students online to respond to the subject at hand. Since I am an online student myself, my instructors tell me to answer more than three sentences. So telling students to be more descriptive with their answers will make them read or research more on the subject or task.
