Posts Tagged ‘asynchronous discussion forums’
February 18 - Tips for More Active Asynchronous Discussions All Semester Long
By: Rob Kelly in Asynchronous Learning and Trends
During a recent seminar, presenters Kay Dennis of Park University and Jeffery Alejandro of East Carolina University, offered the following tips on using online discussions to maintain student motivation: Be explicit and optimistic about expectations for course participation. “I tell students upfront, — ‘I want you to sign in at last three times a week
September 30 - Online Teaching Challenge: Creating an Emotional Connection to Learning, part 2
By: Rob Kelly in Online Education
“One of the biggest barriers to online learning is our inability to respond in the moment, unless we happen to be on live chat or video, which is really rare in most of the online learning world,” says Rick Van Sant, associate professor of education at Ferris State University.
June 29 - Lessons Learned: Advice to Online Instructors
By: Rob Kelly in Online Education
If you have taken online courses, you have likely gained some valuable insights into what to do and what not to do as an online instructor. If you have never been an online learner, here are some lessons learned from Anna Brown, a learning technology specialist enrolled in a hybrid doctoral program in learning technologies.
June 8 - Tapping Into Higher-Level Thinking in Online Courses
By: Anne Saxe in Online Education
One of the most important responsibilities online instructors face is teaching students how to think critically. Successful achievement of this task requires that instructors provide the right setting and the appropriate activities that will prompt a student on to higher-level thinking. Though this mission is not exclusive to online instruction, the online environment presents some unique challenges and opportunities that distinguish this type of learning environment from traditional face-to-face classroom instruction.
June 1 - How to Jumpstart Online Discussions
By: Jim Guinee, PhD in Asynchronous Learning and Trends
Online discussions are sometimes difficult to get going, and often the students (at least at first) seem to respond too superficially, punctuated by an occasional treatise by an overeager student. Here’s how I jumpstart discussions in my family relations online course.
April 29 - Discussion Board Assignments Designed to Foster Interaction and Collaboration
By: Stacey Curdie in Online Education
After some trial and error, I have hit upon a discussion set up that seems to promote the kind of depth and breadth of engagement with the course material and with each other that I would ideally like to elicit. Students are asked to read between two-to-four pieces of literature (poetry, short stories, essays) and to participate in two discussion boards per week – one group discussion and one pair discussion. For both, they must post an initial answer to a question I pose by Tuesday. Then, by Friday at noon, they must read at least what they’re groupmates have posted and post at least one reply/follow-up.
February 26 - Three Ways to Increase the Quality of Students’ Discussion Board Comments
By: Sedef Uzuner and Ruchi Mehta in Asynchronous Learning and Trends
As more and more courses go online, interaction and knowledge building among students rely primarily on asynchronous threaded discussions. For something that is so central to online learning, current research and literature have provided instructors with little support as to how they can facilitate and maintain high-quality conversations among students in these learning environments. This article responds to this need by offering three strategies instructors can use to ensure educationally valuable talk in their online classes.
December 11 - Should You Let Students Lead Discussion Boards?
By: Joan Thormann, PhD. in Asynchronous Learning and Trends
Several years ago, a colleague suggested that having students lead discussions in the online classroom would be a good idea. I agreed and searched the literature for research on this topic but found nothing. No one at that point had been looking at having students moderate, or they hadn’t written about it. I still thought it was a good idea and decided to pursue this line of research by having my students moderate and follow up with an end-of-course student questionnaire.
November 23 - Synching up with Your Asynchronous Learners
By: Rob Kelly in Asynchronous Learning and Trends
Some students are reluctant to enroll in online courses, afraid they will miss some of the social aspects of the face-to-face classroom. For these students, it makes sense to incorporate online synchronous sessions to provide some of the benefits of the face-to-face class while maintaining most of the flexibility of an asynchronous online course.
November 20 - Questioning Styles for More Effective Discussion Boards
By: Rob Kelly in Asynchronous Learning and Trends
Meaningful online discussions that promote learning and build community usually do not happen spontaneously. They require planning, good use of questioning techniques, and incentives for student participation.
