This week, we will be discussing management issues in the online discussion forum, and strategies to address them. Please refer to two resources for this week's discussion. In Module 4, the Management Issues document describes different issues that could arrise in the online discussion forum. In the Purposeful Engagement document, the author lists many different ways that an educator can manage online communication in an effective manner.
In your experience as either a teacher or a student in online courses, which method(s) mentioned in the Purposeful Engagement document have you found to be most effective and why?
Have you ever had issues such as the ones mentioned in the Management Issues resource come up in classes that you've taught or taken? If so please discuss how you adressed it. If not, imagine if one of these issues did came up, how would you handle it (as a teacher or as a student)? Pick an issue, and describe how you would handle it.
My Contribution:
Purposeful Engagement Methods
Because participation in online course discussions is so open-ended to begin with, I find that any method that communicates structure (of time, set-up, and purpose) and sets clear expectations will be a helpful strategy to promote maximum participation. As a student (never a teacher) of online courses, I really appreciate clear guidance on minimum posting requirements. It helps take away some of the "antsyness" about knowing if I've written enough content, posted frequently enough, and generally taken part as is expected. It reminds me of Spanish class when the teacher had a clipboard jotting tallies for every comment we made for adding up participation points. It created a preoccupation to say something just to say something! Throughout a week person can't be constantly checking or adding to a discussion board, nor should they be expected to, so if there are "check-ins" throughout the week, students can make sure to plan their time accordingly. They will also know that fresh content from other classmates will be guaranteed by those check-ins, so discussions will not be bunched up all at the end of the week. One thing I would say is that I'm not convinced that discussion boards are really the same as attendance. Just as there would be "lurkers" (or listeners) in a face-to-face class, there may be instances of that in an online course as well. While a student might not spout out tremendous amounts of thoughts and opinions on a discussion board, they may be internalizing some of the information from my peers and using it in their course products or personal reflection journal. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's hard to truly document one's "attendance" in an online course, and I'm not 100% convinced that online discussions are the only way.
Management Issues
Although I haven't taught on online class before, I can image there would be many “Must-have-an-A” students. I do like the response from Ko and Rossen. In addition, in an effort to prevent these kinds of emails in the first place, I would make sure to be VERY upfront about what it takes to get an A in my course. I would keep all rubrics or scoring guides in a central place, and explicitly highlight the pathway to that grade. I would be sure to include exemplar products (A-worthy) for every assignment so students had a sense for the depth of thought and quality of work I was looking for as an evaluator. This is a difficult one, however, because we want to promote student-centered learning in our classes. Well, how does student-centered learning fit nicely with teacher-supplied A's, B's, and C's? Yes, self-reflection through self-assessment is important, and it should be encouraged as much as possible. Nevertheless, most students still see grades as "given" by their instructors (rather than earned by themselves). The instructor must give the message that they are objectively submitting grades based on how students met the criteria for the class (which should be publicly-accessible, balanced, and easy-to-understand). If one "must have an A" then they can use those tools as a checklist of sorts, just like the instructor will.
[A Peer's Reply: Hi Erica. I agree with you that clear expectations and structure are helpful to promoting participation for online discussions. I found your opinion of participation in discussions linked to participation in class to be thought provoking. I've been that student in the traditional setting that would sit and listen to everyone else, and then used the assignments to show what was going on in my head. Because the focus needs to be placed on learning and the process it takes to get to the end goal, that personal reflection can just as powerful a tool as the discussion boards. My question for you would be if you did not use the discussion board as your tool for measuring "attendance" in class, how else would you measure their participation? ]
My Response: Yes, this is definitely the challenge (although in my opinion attendance is different from participation, even in the traditional classroom setting...) Perhaps measuring participation comes down to the student highlighting their best work throughout the course at the end of the semester showing that they fulfilled the objectives to a certain degree... It wouldn't matter, then, if it were discussion posts, reflections, snippets from assignments, etc. It's up to the student to select the assignment/format that best addresses each learning goal. I certainly appreciate that this takes away from the community-minded collaborative style of the class, however. I wonder if discussion boards weren't mandatory or grade-dependent, what would their use be like? Are there other ways that participation can be incorporated besides the whole-group threaded discussion board model? What about small group discussions, partner tasks, collaborative document writing... It'd require lots of brainstorming, but I feel like there must be other ways to demonstrate and measure participation. I'm certainly no in any way against discussion boards, and enjoy taking part in them... just feel it's important to consider other ways of doing thing and "measuring" things. As for attendance, daily "checkins" or software like Moodle that can gauge numbers of actions or time signed into the class could be helpful statistics that take into account "lurkers" who are spending a long time reading and learning (and hopefully applying) vs. the students who quickly check in to post any old thing to fulfill a minimum requirement. There certainly is no perfect solution.
* * * * * * * * *
Reply to another Peer:
I also think that this reference is a great tool for showcasing exemplary and poor responses. These are good models for students for whom this kind of peer response might be unfamiliar. A sixth grade teacher that I work with who was delving into blogging with her students got them comfortable with the response process by offering sentence starters for them to pick among. Her students were discussing teen activists, and each student was responsible for showcasing a different person they'd read about. Responders had to pick from these replies:
-Another good thing I’ve heard this person has done is…..
-He/she is similar to _______ teen activist in these ways…
-A question I have about this teen activist is…
-An interesting article I found about this activist can be found here ________. It mentions…
-This surprises me because…
Sometimes it's just a matter of getting the students started -- scaffolding them to create an academic versus purely social reply.
My Contribution:
Purposeful Engagement Methods
Because participation in online course discussions is so open-ended to begin with, I find that any method that communicates structure (of time, set-up, and purpose) and sets clear expectations will be a helpful strategy to promote maximum participation. As a student (never a teacher) of online courses, I really appreciate clear guidance on minimum posting requirements. It helps take away some of the "antsyness" about knowing if I've written enough content, posted frequently enough, and generally taken part as is expected. It reminds me of Spanish class when the teacher had a clipboard jotting tallies for every comment we made for adding up participation points. It created a preoccupation to say something just to say something! Throughout a week person can't be constantly checking or adding to a discussion board, nor should they be expected to, so if there are "check-ins" throughout the week, students can make sure to plan their time accordingly. They will also know that fresh content from other classmates will be guaranteed by those check-ins, so discussions will not be bunched up all at the end of the week. One thing I would say is that I'm not convinced that discussion boards are really the same as attendance. Just as there would be "lurkers" (or listeners) in a face-to-face class, there may be instances of that in an online course as well. While a student might not spout out tremendous amounts of thoughts and opinions on a discussion board, they may be internalizing some of the information from my peers and using it in their course products or personal reflection journal. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's hard to truly document one's "attendance" in an online course, and I'm not 100% convinced that online discussions are the only way.
Management Issues
Although I haven't taught on online class before, I can image there would be many “Must-have-an-A” students. I do like the response from Ko and Rossen. In addition, in an effort to prevent these kinds of emails in the first place, I would make sure to be VERY upfront about what it takes to get an A in my course. I would keep all rubrics or scoring guides in a central place, and explicitly highlight the pathway to that grade. I would be sure to include exemplar products (A-worthy) for every assignment so students had a sense for the depth of thought and quality of work I was looking for as an evaluator. This is a difficult one, however, because we want to promote student-centered learning in our classes. Well, how does student-centered learning fit nicely with teacher-supplied A's, B's, and C's? Yes, self-reflection through self-assessment is important, and it should be encouraged as much as possible. Nevertheless, most students still see grades as "given" by their instructors (rather than earned by themselves). The instructor must give the message that they are objectively submitting grades based on how students met the criteria for the class (which should be publicly-accessible, balanced, and easy-to-understand). If one "must have an A" then they can use those tools as a checklist of sorts, just like the instructor will.
[A Peer's Reply: Hi Erica. I agree with you that clear expectations and structure are helpful to promoting participation for online discussions. I found your opinion of participation in discussions linked to participation in class to be thought provoking. I've been that student in the traditional setting that would sit and listen to everyone else, and then used the assignments to show what was going on in my head. Because the focus needs to be placed on learning and the process it takes to get to the end goal, that personal reflection can just as powerful a tool as the discussion boards. My question for you would be if you did not use the discussion board as your tool for measuring "attendance" in class, how else would you measure their participation? ]
My Response: Yes, this is definitely the challenge (although in my opinion attendance is different from participation, even in the traditional classroom setting...) Perhaps measuring participation comes down to the student highlighting their best work throughout the course at the end of the semester showing that they fulfilled the objectives to a certain degree... It wouldn't matter, then, if it were discussion posts, reflections, snippets from assignments, etc. It's up to the student to select the assignment/format that best addresses each learning goal. I certainly appreciate that this takes away from the community-minded collaborative style of the class, however. I wonder if discussion boards weren't mandatory or grade-dependent, what would their use be like? Are there other ways that participation can be incorporated besides the whole-group threaded discussion board model? What about small group discussions, partner tasks, collaborative document writing... It'd require lots of brainstorming, but I feel like there must be other ways to demonstrate and measure participation. I'm certainly no in any way against discussion boards, and enjoy taking part in them... just feel it's important to consider other ways of doing thing and "measuring" things. As for attendance, daily "checkins" or software like Moodle that can gauge numbers of actions or time signed into the class could be helpful statistics that take into account "lurkers" who are spending a long time reading and learning (and hopefully applying) vs. the students who quickly check in to post any old thing to fulfill a minimum requirement. There certainly is no perfect solution.
* * * * * * * * *
Reply to another Peer:
I also think that this reference is a great tool for showcasing exemplary and poor responses. These are good models for students for whom this kind of peer response might be unfamiliar. A sixth grade teacher that I work with who was delving into blogging with her students got them comfortable with the response process by offering sentence starters for them to pick among. Her students were discussing teen activists, and each student was responsible for showcasing a different person they'd read about. Responders had to pick from these replies:
-Another good thing I’ve heard this person has done is…..
-He/she is similar to _______ teen activist in these ways…
-A question I have about this teen activist is…
-An interesting article I found about this activist can be found here ________. It mentions…
-This surprises me because…
Sometimes it's just a matter of getting the students started -- scaffolding them to create an academic versus purely social reply.
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