Q3. In order to engage and motivate students in their online course include making sure that teacher presence is felt, forming a community that fosters interaction, and working to create a democracy within the online social element (UNSW, 2011). In order to facilitate active learning in the online course, I would be sure to set very specific and concrete guidelines showing what I expect from my students, and I would work to make sure that group participation was more of an interactive learning experience, working to show that it doesn’t matter if the posting requirement is met, it is the content of what is said that matters. I may inadvertently decrease student’s motivation and engagement by not making my presence known in the online classroom, or by providing assignments that are dull, boring, and which do not otherwise engage the student population.
Q4. The twenty best practices for facilitating discussion board discussions in online courses are:
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"Engaging and Motivating Students".
| Acknowledge a group of responses | Re-engage students using follow up questions | Request students summarize all or part of a discussion | Design questions that stimulate thinking | Work to provide only open ended responses to keep discussion going |
| Split discussions into smaller groups | Reply to posts with more questions than statements | Summarize discussion posts to close out to move on to the next topic | Include visual images and multimedia to create a more interactive experience | Avoid the use of a negative tone, or any text that may appear to put students down |
| Compliment students on their insights, but not excessively | Setup a discussion board structure | Read all posts before responding | Incorporate comments on what one student said in another’s response | Respond first to classmates who have not yet received a reply to their posts |
| Speculate on other applications of the topic to keep discussion going. | Cultivate online communication skills, discussing word choice and usage as well as content | Make sure discussions are learner centered and not teacher centered | Keep discussion active and engaging to ensure participation does not drop off | Make sure that discussion posts are not over taxing in light of weekly assignments |
(CCCO, 2013)
Of these 20, the four best are: replying with more questions than statements, designing questions that stimulate thinking, re-engaging students with follow up questions, and keeping the discussion active and engaging in order to ensure participation.
The following are the instructor discussion board guidelines that have been created for the course:
- The teacher must participate in the discussion boards, working to foster communication between students.
- The teacher must provide constructive criticism to students, pointing out where there are fallacies in the logic, incorrect information, and where valid points are made.
- The teacher must work to ensure that no discrimination or deliberately insulting comments are not provided, in essence, moderate the forums.
- The teacher will grade based upon quality of answer, active participation, clarity of answer provided, whether or not the discussion needed to be moderated, and use of the written English language.
The student expectation guidelines for discussion board participation are as follows:
- All discussion board topics must be responded to once, with at least two responses to fellow classmates. These responses should include proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation and be well thought out.
- Responses to the initial topic should be no less than 500 words unless explicitly stated, and responses to teacher or classmates should be no less than 200 words.
- All parts of the question must be completely answered in a clear and concise manner, and all citations should be properly referenced.
- Students are expected to behave in a courteous, non-insulting manner. Students may disagree, but must do so in a respectful manner.
- Primary postings must be made by Wednesday; responses must be complete by Sunday.
- Students will be graded on substance, clarity of response, quality of response, proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, citations, and each post must actively contribute to the discussion.
(Palomar College, 2013)
Feedback may take on many different forms, including individually, to the class overall, through emails, announcements, discussion forums, online chat, and so on; there are two specific types of feedback that may be provided to students, information feedback and acknowledgement feedback (Graham et al., 2001). Information feedback provides information to the student, including answering a question, a grade, comments, or helpful tips to assist in pointing the student in the right direction, while acknowledgement feedback serves to confirm that something has happened, as with an acknowledgement that a student’s work was received (Graham et al., 2001). Information feedback is important because of the information that it provides to the students to assist in their career and the learning process, while acknowledgement feedback works to ensure the student that their question or assignment has been seen and they will have a response soon; it makes sure that the student does not wonder what happened and provides effective communication.
- CCCO. (2013). Strategies for engaging discussions. Retrieved from http://www.ccconline.org/
- Graham, C., Cagiltay, K., Lim, B., Craner, J., & Duffy, T. (2001, March/April). Seven principles of effective teaching: A practical lens for evaluating online courses. Retrieved from http://technologysource.org
- Palomar College. (2013). Discussion board: Instructions to students. Retrieved from http://daphne.palomar.edu
- UNSW. (2011, January 11). Engaging and motivating students. Retrieved from http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au
