In the life of a professor, what’s more satisfying than a successful class discussion? A classroom abuzz with ideas, students who are energized and alert, sinking their teeth into the assigned material, riffing in surprising, productive ways. Isn’t this why we got into the
Discussion forums are ubiquitous in online education despite getting mixed reviews from students and teachers. Faculty complain of students giving only perfunctory responses, while students lament discussion questions that allow only cursory answers.
The problem is the prompt is often written in language requesting a
Instructors and students have a love-hate relationship with the online discussion board. On the one hand, it can foster dialogue and a sense of community. On the other, it can feel forced and flat.
How might a teacher address the following moment in a college classroom?
Students are discussing a course reading about the rising cost of higher education and President Biden’s plan to address growing student loan debt. Three white students comment on the subject. A fourth student,
As college instructors, we always encourage students to ask questions in class or during office hours. But many students with questions do not ask them in class for fear appearing stupid in front of others. They also may not have the time to come to
The textbook in the online educator preparation course I was redesigning would not have been my first choice. It was dry, theory heavy, and difficult to read. I wanted to supplement it with an engaging discussion activity—a student-directed one—that would motivate students to read it
Discussion is one of the biggest challenges for online students, and poor discussion is one of the biggest complaints among online faculty. Student responses are often perfunctory, lacking the depth the instructor desires. But rather than laziness, poor discussion often results from students not knowing
I’ve been teaching literature for more than 30 years, and nothing has struck me more during that time than the difficulty of finding just the right discussion question. It’s easy to give out information, which students dutifully take down in notebooks and throw away after
Online faculty often default to an essay assignment mindset when establishing the parameters for an online discussion. They require posts to be up to 500 words and to include several citations and other academic writing components, such as introductions, conclusions, and references.
Too often, asynchronous online discussions morph into students making only perfunctory postings to fulfill the bare minimum requirements. We blame students, but the deeper issue is that the discussion forum is foreign to students because real conversations aren’t planned. How often have you sat with
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