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.
Frequent and timely responses by instructor
This is crucial to generating a successful semester-long discussion group, especially for the first couple weeks. When students see the instructor respond quickly to posts or questions, they are more likely to write and respond to each other. For instructors online a lot anyway, quick responses do not seem to take any extra time. Responses should be more than “thanks” or “that’s interesting,” as students will cue from the instructor-consciously or unconsciously-what the proper level of interaction is on a discussion group.
The first assignment in the classes I teach is for the students to write a short bio about themselves and post it to the group. This not only ensures they sign up for the group, but shows them how to post messages. Shortly after class I post my own bio as an example, and as students post their bios I make sure to comment on some interesting or unique aspect of their lives, finding connections where possible that I might not have mentioned in my bio. Students also make connections with each other in interesting and unique ways.
It is interesting to see the change in atmosphere in the classroom from one class to the next. Because students know the others posting and will see them in class for the next several weeks, they are less likely to write inflammatory messages or resort to character assassination when disagreeing.
Moderator as provocateur
Academic-oriented moderated discussion groups often become online versions of the stuffy classroom, with students offering tentative answers to questions posed by the professor, perhaps discussing among themselves, and then having the professor step in again with a summary or overview of what the main points are.
I like to turn that model on its head. Sometimes I will be the one to take an unpopular or extreme position, forcing the students to defend their viewpoints and the conventional wisdom. In the ensuing, sometimes heated, discussions (in which it’s often me against the class) I am able to pick out weak arguments, incorrect information and other logical fallacies. My goal isn’t to convince them of my position, but to have them look at other elements of the given topic that they might not usually think about and to informally test whether they really did read the material.
This technique also creates an environment for a vigorous yet respectful debate, as it is unlikely a student will start into the sort of name-calling with their professor that is commonly found on discussion groups. This means it is less likely students will “flame” each other during a semester when they disagree.
Discussion topics tied to reading assignments
Tying weekly discussion topics to reading assignments gives students an incentive to read the material, as they’ll need to understand the reading in order to respond to the topic. I would usually ask a question based on a reading assignment that showed an understanding of the issues; I would not ask students to summarize a reading in the discussion group. Summarizing is not a discussion. Ask a fairly specific question that addresses important principles, and ask what they think about what the author said. However, resist the temptation to make it an exam-like essay question such as “How did the transition from yellow journalism to professional journalism take place? Describe three factors.” This kind of “question” will kill discussion, as the first person to write has essentially answered the question. Use this type of discussion to generate discussions: “In the reading, journalist Smith says that within our lifetimes we won’t have print publications. Do you think he’s right and why or why not?”
Based on answers students give, the instructor can then counter their points and explore other issues related to the reading that will further show whether students read and understood the relevant material.
Assignments posted to group
With journalism or media classes, I see no reason students should turn in their written assignments for the professor’s eyes only. If they want to work in mass communication, their work will be seen by many more eyes than a classroom of students, so they should get used to laying themselves open and being judged in the eyes of their peers. I have not forced students to read what others have written, or comment on what they read, as having students make comments on each other’s work generally creates weak criticism out of fear of hurting someone’s feelings or else unfair criticism because they have an axe to grind with a particular student.
I vigorously edit and comment on each story I receive, sometimes printing out in hard copy, and return the edited story to the students and encourage them to share comments with each other. They will have had the opportunity to see everyone’s work, make their own judgments about that work based on their writing, and with students they feel comfortable with will be able to share each other’s edited pieces and compare my comments of theirs with those of their classmates. This method seems to avoid many of the social pressures or ego forces that detract from high-quality student assessments of each other’s work.
Online participation is part of grade
Making participation online might seem coercive, but if the other principles are followed above then it really is an extraneous issue as students will naturally participate in the discussion group. However, sometimes ground rules have to be stated in order to avoid confusion, especially in a new communication forum like a discussion group. Explain that short answers such as “I agree” and “Me too” don’t constitute participation. Explain also that students don’t have to respond to every single post, especially when it is part of a common thread. They can respond to several messages within a thread within one email, thus reducing inbox clutter for their classmates. And of course students should not call each other names or otherwise “flame” their classmates for posts they do not agree with.
Establish rules for what is considered “enough” participation, although the students do not necessarily have to know exactly what those rules are. In order to avoid the electronic equivalent of “the dog ate my homework” excuse, encourage students to sign up for the group with a Web-based email such as Hotmail or Yahoo! or have a Web-based email as a back-up in case their email or computer connections go down (which always seems to happen around assignment time).
Other points to keep in mind
I’ve used online discussion groups with classes ranging in size from 6 to 15 students. I found at the low end of the spectrum it was hard to keep as active as a discussion as I would have liked because not everyone participated equally. With 12-15 students, there are enough people who regularly write that even with a few slackers the discussions are robust and interesting. Although I haven’t been able to test it yet, I have a feeling that the upper limit to a good online discussion that does not become too scattered or disjointed or that demands more out-of-class time from the professor than is humanly feasible is about 20 students.
By following some of the principles above, the class will naturally gravitate to students regularly sharing information they get with the discussion group. Especially at the graduate level, the range of work and life experiences can be fascinating. The more students share knowledge with each other the more they are getting out of the class.
Some classes are better suited for online discussion groups than others, but it can be used anywhere. Online journalism works especially well for discussion groups, as many of the topics taught in class are consistently in the news. Even a basic newswriting class could benefit from an online discussion group as the professor sends out particularly good and bad samples of leads, columns and articles.
Finally, remember that the professor, as creator and moderator of the discussion group, has an inordinate amount of power in terms of dictating the atmosphere and openness of a group. If a student is chastised on the group for what the moderator feels is a post that is too long or off-topic, it will have a dampening affect on other posts, even if the criticism is accurate. Email the poster personally at first to caution about mildly inappropriate behavior; if that doesn’t work then post to the group and let peer pressure do its work.