screen capture of WebBoard discussion tool

Discussions

Online forums for teachers and learners to communicate at any time

Samples

Discussions on Health.

Discussion activity on the health of aged care residents.

Source Grange Care Services Toolbox (Aged Care), lead agent E-learn
URL http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/toolbox/series6/602.htm
Use CHC30102 Certificate III in Aged Care Work
CHC30202 Certificate III in Home and Community Care
Delivery Can be delivered with a CD-ROM but needs an online discussion tool for interactive activities.
Customisation Discussion tasks could be easily customised using an HTML editor.
Availability Details of how to purchase this Toolbox are available on the Flexible Learning Toolbox site

How can performance be appraised?

Discussion activity involving learners in a work team posting ideas to a discussion board.

Source Developing People in Government - National Public Service Toolbox, developed by Queensland TAFE
URL http://flexiblelearning.net.au/toolbox/series5/514.htm
Use Certificate IV in Government
Delivery Can be delivered using a CD or loaded into a subject delivery system.
Customisation The material in this Toolbox has been developed to allow for customisation.
Availability Details of how to purchase this Toolbox are available on the Flexible Learning Toolbox site

Discussion activity on relationships.

Activity 2 and 3 outline a scenario and asks learners to propose solutions on discussion boards

Source Where's the party at? - Toolbox, lead agent Swinburne TAFE
URL

http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/toolbox/series5/519.htm with the direct link to this activity at http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/toolbox/demosites/series5/519/site/sex-rel-02_circle_friends.htm then click on “Circle of Friends”.
Use literacy and numeracy for 15-19 year olds
Delivery Can be delivered using a CD or loaded into a subject delivery system. The material in this Toolbox has been developed to allow for customisation.
Customisation Can be customised.
Availability Details of how to purchase this Toolbox are available on the Flexible Learning Toolbox site

Job Log Discussion Forum

After an initial introduction to the drilling method, the learner joins a drilling crew that is about to go out on shift. The driller for the crew, Dave, is their guide and mentor as the learner completes a Job log as evidence of their learning. The Job log encourages learners to share knowledge and experiences face-to-face with their drilling crew and virtually, using a discussion forum

Source TOOLBOX: Methods of Drilling - Series 7
URL

http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/toolbox/series7/706.htm
Use literacy and numeracy for 15-19 year olds
Delivery Can be delivered using a CD or loaded into a subject delivery system. The material in this Toolbox has been developed to allow for customisation.
Customisation Can be customised.
Availability Details of how to purchase this Toolbox are available on the Flexible Learning Toolbox site

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Why include discussions?

Collaboration with teachers and other learners is often a key feature of effective learning environments. Online discussion activities on conference or bulletin boards can develop a collaborative environment and reduce the alienation of learners studying at a distance. Discussion activities can become the communications hub of your online teaching program.

Features

  • allows learners and teachers to communicate at any time or place
  • builds a learning community
  • creates an archive of course communication
  • allows learners time to reflect on postings and prepare suitable messages
  • reduces the time need to respond to individual learners via email.

Discussion activities can be text or voice based and is generally used to support asynchronous learning. Asynchronous learning involves the ability for trainers and learners to maintain communication without having to meet at the same place at the same time.

Discussion activities can be undertaken using a variety of methods:

  • Discussion forums
    (known also by various other names such as discussion group, discussion forum, message board, and online forum)
    Discussion Forum is a general term for any online "bulletin board" where Trainers and Learners can leave and expect to see responses to messages others have left. Or Users can just read the board.
  • Voice boards
    Are similar to discussion forums but allow you to create threaded discussions by recording yopur comments as audio messages. Like text discussion boards, users can post a voice message and then others can listen to it later and respond in voice and text.
  • Instant Messaging
    IM is a form of online communication that allows real-time (or close to real-time) interaction through personal computers or mobile computing devices. Users can exchange messages privately, similar to e-mail, or join group conversations. While typed text remains the primary convention for IM, the technology has allows users to send images, audio and video files, and other attachments to their contacts.
  • Comments posted to wikis or blogs
    Blogs are an easy to update web-based system that allows for online journals, diaries, portfolios and web communities. Wikis are a website resource which allows users to add and edit content collectively. Both blogs and wikis allow visitors and web users to post comments and feedback to content posted there.

A list of these tools can be found at http://www.cooltools.net.au/communication.htm

Teaching and learning opportunities

The range of types of discussion activities is endless but typically teachers have used discussions for the following:

Visit Activities for online forums for a range of suggestions for community building and class activities using discussion forums.

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Integrating discussions

Design steps

  1. Consider the range of communication activities within the course.
  2. Decide if discussion participation will be assessable (see below for more information on assessment).
  3. Provide instruction or a simple activity (for example, introductions and personal course goal statements) to ensure that your knows the know how to post messages
  4. Set up 'seed' messages to get learners started and to outline the purpose of each thread/topic. Develop activities to make sure everyone knows and feels comfortable with each other
  5. Establish with the learners some ground rules about etiquette, manner, and respect for others and their opinions
  6. Give learners some guidelines about the length and frequency of posts (i.e. discourage lengthy, verbose posts, post no more than 2 messages in a row without others response etc)
  7. Consider establishing smaller groups so that people's opinions have a smaller audience and the threads are easier to follow and respond to by learners
  8. Set up the discussion space to facilitate these activities (structure threads, allocate teams and private spaces etc).
  9. Constantly monitor the discussion and respond to or initiate discussions where necessary.
  10. Contact learners who are not participating, reading but not post (“lurkers”) or who are responding inappropriately to the task.
  11. Summarise or “weave” discussion threads and post a summary that makes linkages to other aspects of the learning program. It can become difficult for learners to follow the communication that is taking place on the forum. Weaving is where you post messages that help students understand how a discussion is flowing and its relationship to previous discussion. Use weaving to review print outs, refer to earlier discussions, clarify confused content understanding or arguments, identify themes and make connections between posts.
  12. Archive and save the post for later review/assessment recording

Assessment

Participation in discussion activities can form the basis of an assessment task. If you are intending to use contributions to discussion forums or chat for assessment purposes you should clearly outline to the learners how you will be assessing their online contributions.

Trainers often report that  learner participation in discussion forums their subject can  be quite low unless they provide an assessment or participation incentive that encourages students to read and post messages.

We have prepared a Word document as an example of a document that may be given to learners prior to the commencement of a course outlining the assessment criteria for the discussion activity. You may wish to modify it for your own purposes and context.

Discussion activity assessment rubric (Word document)

For more ideas on integrating assessment into discussion activities visit http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/resources/documents/celt_4.pdf

Most discussion forums technologies allow you to create a compiled list of an individual's contributions which can be used in assessment.

Generic skills

Discussion activities offer extremely rich opportunities to foster generic skills. Activities within the discussion board may involve:

  • working in pairs or teams in private threads (defining the roles in the team, crisis management, giving feedback to other team members)
  • problem solving and offering solutions to issues posed in the discussion (developing creative and innovative solutions, applying a range of strategies to solve problems)
  • communication skills (writing which is appropriate to the audience, persuading effectively, sharing information, asking for clarification, agreeing and disagreeing)
  • effective use of technology.

Technical notes

You will need access to an online discussion tool provided by your organisation in a Learner Management System by your organisation ((WebCT, Blackboard, Janison, WebBoard). Alternatively you can access a huge range of web-based sites such as Yahoo Groups or Messenger, or MSN Live Messenger or phBB. Generally the technical skills required to moderate a discussion are at the low end and are a good way into online learning for teachers.

Skills

You will need skills in:

  • setting up the online discussion environment (setting up threads, allocating learners to private groups, managing messages, navigating messages etc)
  • moderating the discussion activities (e-moderation).

Moderating a discussion in an online environment is now called e-moderation. The role of the teacher as an e-moderator is to:

  • provide the rules of the discussion (value what others say, don't interrupt etc)
  • offer an opening gambit, the provocative statement, scene setting
  • rephrase what students have said to ensure their point is clearly stated, if necessary
  • provide links from one aspect of the discussion to the other
  • draw together the disparate threads of the discussion to form a conclusion.

These e-moderation techniques are critically important to the success of online learning.

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See also

From the Framework

More resources from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework

Tools and resources

Social bookmark for this strategy

http://del.icio.us/designelearn/discussions

Last modified: 15/9/08