Online discussion groups can be an excellent way to get students engaged in classroom material and topics. I have used online discussion groups for several college classes in the past couple years and the response from students has been overwhelmingly positive.
There are several techniques I have used that help keep the discussion group active and informative. Some of the techniques go against conventional teaching wisdom or standard moderated discussion group practices, but they have worked for me and I’ll explain why I think they worked. I use Yahoo!Groups (formerly egroups) and have been very happy with their services.
Some important elements for successful discussion groups:
- members receive postings via email
- frequent and timely responses by instructor
- moderator as provocateur
- discussion topics tied to reading assignments
- assignments posted to group
- online participation is part of classroom grade
Members receive postings via email
Getting postings by email makes it much easier for students to read and comment on what their classmates and the instructor are saying. If group members have to go a specific discussion group page just to read messages, they can easily lose track of developments in an active thread if they don’t go to the site in a couple days. A long list of posts can discourage them from reading through them and then posting something. Students are much more likely to respond either to individual posts when they receive them as emails, or at the end of the day after reading various postings. The more frequent feedback keeps discussions on topic better, rather than having posts days responding to matters that were discussed days earlier. (more…)