Transcript Fostering Student Engagement through Discussion Forums

Fostering Student Engagement
through Discussion Forums
Gina Siesing, Ph.D., Associate Director for Educational Technology
UIT Academic Technology
University Teaching Conference
12/12/07
Today’s workshop will offer…
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An Overview of Discussion Tools Available at Tufts
Examples to Frame Exploration
Exploration of Individual Goals around “Engagement”
Suggestions for Enabling Effective Discussions
Hands-on Practice with Blackboard/TUSK
Reflections on What Works for Particular Contexts
• Resources and Next Steps
Discussion Tools at Tufts: Blackboard
Discussion Tools at Tufts: TUSK
Discussion Tools at Tufts: SparkForums
Discussion Forum Terminology:
Blackboard
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TUSK
Discussion Board
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Discussions/Discussion
Boards/Forums
Add Forum
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New Discussion
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Add Thread
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Add Topic
 New Topic
Initial Post and Replies
Initial Post and Replies
 Spark
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SparkForums
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Create New Forum
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Initial Post and Replies
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Special Discussion Tool Features:
• Attachments and Links (all)
• Watching/Subscribing to Forum (all)
• Flags - New/Recent, Sticky, etc. (all)
• Groups (all)
• Search (all)
• Aggregation - Collect, Sort, Print (Blackboard)
• Embedding images (Spark, TUSK)
• Avatars (Spark, TUSK)
• Who’s online / Private Messages (Spark, TUSK)
• Polling / Blog (TUSK)
A few examples for your consideration…
• what makes a discussion flop?
Fletcher Students, 1975, TDL
• what makes a discussion thrive?
• what’s the connection between online and face-to-face?
Example 1: Addressing Diversity Challenges
Example 2: Fostering Student Connections
Example 3: Linking between Online and FTF
How can you tell whether a discussion is
“successful”?
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How will the students know?
First, articulate your particular goal for the forum:
“To foster students' engagement with course material”
“To facilitate their connection with fellow students”
“To create opportunities for reflective thinking”
“To enable discussion of challenging topics”
MAKE A NOTE OF YOUR SPECIFIC GOAL
Based on your goals, build your assignment:
BROAD PARAMETERS:
• required or optional?
• credit or no credit?
FRAMING THE ASSIGNMENT:
• where is the assignment published?
• specific roles you’ll play / specific roles for students?
• relation between online discussion and ftf interactions?
• ensuring students back up their work locally
SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS:
• original posts/replies to others?
• genre and length of posts?
• time frames for posting, reading, replying?
Hands-on oddities…
1. (Nearly) synchronous activities in a medium
meant for asynchronous communication….
2. Having discussed the importance of instructional
design, we move to the messiness of just-in-time
experience….
Your First Assignment:
1. Log in to either Blackboard (blackboard.tufts.edu) or TUSK
(tusk.tufts.edu).
2. Go to the “Fostering Student Engagement” course.
3. Go to the Discussions for the course.
4. Post one reply to the discussion board, “What forms of
engagement are worth fostering?” No more than 2-3
sentences.
5. Next, read two of your peers’ responses and reply to at least
one of these.
6. Report out on some of the responses you noticed in the
forum.
We’re here to help with logistics!!
Your Second Assignment:
1. In either Blackboard or TUSK, go to the “Fostering Student
Engagement - Instructors” course.
2. Go to the Discussion tool and add a new Discussion Forum
designed to foster student engagement in whatever way you
wish.
3. Invite two of your neighbors to participate for 5 minutes.
4. You’ll also be participating in their newly created discussions.
5. What did you notice?
6. What would you modify to meet your goals for actual
students?
We’re here to help with logistics!!
Reflections on Approaches that Work…
And thoughts about how you can foster meaningful engagement
without investing inordinate amounts of time…
Resources and Next Steps:
Blackboard:
• http://blackboard.tufts.edu
• Blackboard Help: http://ase.tufts.edu/its/blackboard/guide.htm
• Neal Hirsig, Assistant Director for Instructional Services, ITS
• [email protected]
Resources and Next Steps:
TUSK:
• http://tusk.tufts.edu
• TUSK Help: http://tusk.tufts.edu/view/course/HSDB/1185
• Susan Albright, Director, TUSK
• [email protected]
Resources and Next Steps:
Spark:
• http://spark.uit.tufts.edu
• Spark Support Web Site: http://go.tufts.edu/sparksupport
• David Grogan, Manager, Curricular Technology Group, UIT
• [email protected]
Resources and Next Steps:
Consultation about instructional goals and approaches:
• UIT Academic Technology, [email protected], 7-2451
• UIT Encyclopedia for Teaching with Technology