- Only use discussion boards for postings that you and your students feel comfortable being public. Just as in-class discussion is "public", discussion board postings need to be the kind of material that students feel comfortable sharing.
- Provide students with models and guidelines for "how much is good enough".
- Set up guidelines for yourself about responding. Review your reasons and your learning objectives for this assignment. How much of this needs to be fully assessed, commented, or graded by you and how much can skimmed and merely credited as "acceptable" or "not acceptable"?
Friday, September 25, 2009
It's Post Time! and....They're Off!
Ellen Nuffer, Professor of Education, presented a brown bag lecture on the the various and creative ways she uses discussion boards to foster a collaborative learning environment. She covered a wide range of topics including how she manages the discussion board for 1st semester freshman who might be unsure about tone, quality, and collaboration versus upper level students who have more experience posting and providing feedback to peers. While there were a number of takeaways, Ellen provided three recommendations for faculty interested in adopting discussion boards (this is a compressed version of her recommendations).
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Thanks to all who came to the presentation!
ReplyDeleteHere is the first part of the handout:
Use of BlackBoard Discussion Boards
It’s Post Time! and … They’re Off!
Ellen L. Nuffer, Ed.D.
Professor of Education, Keene State College
September 23, 2009
WHY?
Why do we need to communicate with students outside of class?
• Provide them with new material
• Ensure they are prepared for class
• Enhance and support their learning
Research on learning and cognition tells us that active engagement with the course material plus collaboration with others outside of class can enhance learning to a greater degree than relying solely on in-class presentations and traditional homework. Using BlackBoard, faculty are able to facilitate communication: faculty to student(s) - as in commenting and expanding on a student’s analysis of a video clip; student(s) to faculty – as in synthesizing assigned readings or class discussion notes; or student(s) to fellow student(s) – as in formulating a position on a topic or reacting to a draft.
The flexibility of the Discussion Boards allows faculty to set up Boards with restricted membership, so that only certain class members can see or read postings, or merely designate certain forums to be used for certain purposes, such as commenting on last week’s speaker, or for the “Educational Systems in Africa” Group to use, etc. BlackBoard Discussion Boards can also be used for such administrative functions, by both students and faculty, as sharing handouts, links, or course related materials, making or claiming appointment or presentation times, or announcing research topic selections or class discussion topics.
Here is the second part:
ReplyDeleteTWO CAVEATS
1) Only use the Discussion Boards for postings that you and students feel comfortable being public. Just as in-class discussion is “public”, Discussion Board postings need to be the kind of material that students feel comfortable sharing. Don’t create an assignment that students make postings about something that may be controversial, or expose them to negative feedback. In some classes, you may be able to create an atmosphere of trust so that in time students can share first drafts of hypotheses or analyses, but this may not be possible in all classes. Ask yourself – is this the kind of thinking that may be spoken out loud in class? You may find that you need to have an open discussion about this in class and recognize, out loud, that this kind of open sharing and collaboration may feel uncomfortable for some students, but that you are requiring it because you feel it will enhance their learning.
2) You will need to provide students with models and guidelines for “how much is good enough”. I often give word or sentence counts for postings. For example, in a recent graduate class I directed them to “post a learning journal entry consisting of one page, or 300 words, of reflections on the class presentations and textbook readings for that day. This is your opportunity to make sense of the material, to question it, or draw your own conclusions.”
Another assignment asked them to respond to the posts of their colleagues. “Read at least two Learning Journal entries of your colleagues. Post back a comment of 4-6 sentences - what was a helpful analysis, what didn’t make sense to someone else that you could explain better, what agreements or disagreements did you have with their perspective?, etc”
3) Okay – I lied – there is a third. The third caveat is that you need to set up guidelines for yourself about responding. Review your reasons and your learning objectives for this assignment. How much of this needs to be fully assessed, commented, or graded by you and how much can be skimmed and merely credited as “acceptable” or “not acceptable”? It may be useful to think of this as similar to class participation and discussion; we don’t always respond to every remark made in a class discussion. You should not feel compelled to respond to every posting made. I respond to most postings by most students in the first few weeks; I respond to several more in class. Over the course of several weeks, I reduce my written comments and work more on the principle of “spot checks”.
EXAMPLES
* Learning journals – an entry requiring students to synthesize readings, class lecture notes, etc
* Individual appointments or research presentation times – you post times that are available and students reply with their choice
* Group planning – members post according to their assigned roles (chooser of article, class discussion facilitator, discussion summarizer/poster, etc)
* Post information for class, such as handouts for class presentation
* Post “Interesting Info” – articles, websites, YouTube clips, etc related to class material
* Group editing of papers or project (may be better accomplished on Group Pages)
* Online lecture/discussion
- post article, notes, and video clip for students to watch
- post series of questions for them to respond to: everyone responds to x/x questions and then comments on x number of colleagues’ comments
Thanks for your contribution Ellen! It was a terrific presentation and touched on a number of areas that would interest faculty including the "administrative/management" utility of discussion boards; i.e. using them as a way to have students sign-up for faculty-to-student meetings. I think this is an area that is often overlooked - but oh so useful!
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