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Discussion Forums Overview
"A free exchange of ideas, opinions, and feelings is the lifeblood of collaborative learning." - J. McKinle
Contributing Author: JoAnn Gonzalez-Major
Overview
Discussion forums can serve as a learning tool that fosters in-depth, academic discussion, an arena in which students work collaboratively or conduct peer analysis, or simply a place where they can virtually communicate with each other. Discussion forums used well can be an effective learning tool that encourages students to engage in higher order thinking activities.
Creating good questions is one of the most important factors in designing successful discussion forums. The following are some question possibilities.
- The open-ended question: Ask for the how’s and the why’s instead of the what’s.
- The controversial question: That the unpopular stand and get your students riled up.
- The “naiveté” question: Ask the “dumb” question to get your students talking.
- The “synthesizer” question: Draw from related reading materials, asking your students to determine what “person A” would have to say about “Person B” because of “C”.
- The peer facilitator question: Have the students sign up for a facilitation week and give each student responsibility for addressing a major point/topical question, soliciting input from their peers, and posting a summary of the discussion at the end of the week.
Discussion Question - Sample 1
Should companies promote health economic information to USA employers?
Background & Instructions: In the USA a large portion of health insurance premiums for individuals under the age of 65 is paid for by employers. In an effort to manage premium increases, employers have formed healthcare employer coalitions and have implemented Health Enhancement, disease screening and similar programs. Should pharmaceutical companies allocate phase IV funding to support research and/or promotional activities with employers? Team A should argue that employers are an important customer segment for whom limited research and promotional spending budgets should be allocated. Team B should argue that limited research and promotional spend budgets should be allocated only to support activities directed toward patients, academic medical centers and managed markets customers. Please support your posting with examples of successful or unsuccessful collaborations between employers and pharmaceutical companies or with examples of work productivity messages.
Another important factor is keeping the discussions on topic. The following suggestions can assist in accomplishing this goal.
- Creating well-designed questions that keep students topic focused (see question possibilities noted above.)
- Provide a new discussion forum for each week or topic. If one forum is used for the entire term the threads may get rather long and provide parameters or guidelines for what constitutes an acceptable response (rubrics work very well – samples can be found in Appendix A).
- Revise threaded discussion questions when responses are off-target. If a question is not working well and students are confused, change it immediately and send out an email to students regarding the change o post a new thread with the revised question and associated questions.
- Bring a tread to closure by summarizing the issues presented and resolved in the discussion; pinpoint especially interesting and informative responses by your students. This summary can be emailed to the students, posted to the end of the threaded discussion, or posted in the weekly announcements of the course site.
- Give clear detailed directions to your students on what you want in their responses at the beginning of each thread.
- Provide an informal threaded discussion elsewhere in the course. This can be a good place for students to post non-content related questions or to socialize online.
- When appropriate post reminders that students stay on topic. If students begin to stray from the topic, post an item to the discussion pushing everyone back in the right direction. If the direction the students have strayed is a good one, reinforce it and allow the discussion to focus on the new topic.
- Provide incentives for students to participate in the online discussions by attributing a discernable percentage of the grade to this activity (can be tied to the rubric noted in item 2.)
- Privately reprimand and give constructive feedback to students who make off-topic postings or fail to meet posting requirements.
- Delete/hide threaded discussion postings by those students who refuse to play by the rules and then deny them access to the threads and lower their class participation grade.
Discussion Question - Sample 2
Events that occur at one point in time are likely to influence theories that are developed sometime thereafter. For example, the theory Gagne` first put forth in the 1960s was most likely influenced by his work designing military training during the 1940s. Think about present-day events and how they may shape future views of learning and instruction. On the basis of your ideas, describe an instructional theory that may appear in the next twenty years and discuss the events today that are likely to shape that theory.
Creating and Managing Forums
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