Tips for facilitating online discussions

One way that online instructors can greatly increase their presence in an online course is by utilizing forums for discussion. This provides an opportunity for all three forms of communication (student-to-resource, student-to-student, instructor-to-student). Instructors can interact in a variety of ways and can help foster discussion and learning by using different types of reply posts. It is important to note, that instructors should not feel obligated to respond to each and every student post. Doing so would be time consuming and we would not really expect this in a face to face conversation either. However, being clear about this to your students at the beginning may be helpful (i.e. state that you will be responding to posts, but that responding to each individual student post is not likely/reasonable).

To help instructors increase their presence and to help better facilitate learning and class discussion, the following tips can be used.

Connect a comment or post from a student to previously learned material. In student learning, making explicit connections between old and new material helps to build a stronger network of knowledge. Students will sometimes do this themselves spontaneously, but other times they need help.
- Example instructor posts:
  - Your comment reminds me of the concept of X that we discussed two weeks ago. Can you explain how your thoughts and concept X are related?
  - Very interesting example from your personal experience. Can you tie this back to a theory that was discussed earlier in the class relating to this example?
Ask for elaboration or clarification. Perhaps based on a rubric guidelines for forum posts. Asking for further elaboration requires a student to basically write-out their thought process. This activity of outlining their thoughts helps both the instructor and the student see why they responded the way they did and helps to increase metacognitive awareness.
- Example instructor posts:
  - Why do you think that?
  - What is your reasoning?
  - Is there an alternative strategy?
Prompt another student to respond. Don’t feel that you, the instructor, needs to personally respond all the time. Prompt others to chime in. Students have valid thoughts and experiences that can be meaningful to the conversation.
- Example instructor posts:
  - Student X gives an excellent example in this situation. Can others give an example of this in other contexts?
  - Student Y believes ______. What do others believe?
Give a question to a student to research and answer. Perhaps your student is more of an expert in an area than you are (yeah, it happens). Ask a question that you have and ask the student to respond back to you. Of course the student does not need to be an expert, but they can get practice in researching a question and replying back.
- Example instructor posts:
  - You mention using Method A with your classroom. I’m not familiar with this approach; can you explain this more to me?
  - You describe a disorder that appears to be quite rare. Please do a little additional research about what is known about this disorder and how it might be treated.
Ask other students to respond to a student’s question. Too often students see their instructor as the only source for information, when in reality the students themselves can also be resources to one another. To help facilitate students serving as informational resources to one another try to give the responsibility for answering questions to them.
- Example instructor posts:
  - Student A asks an interesting question about Concept Z. I want another student to respond and answer to her question.
  - I could answer your question directly, but I think Student B had a good description in his post earlier. Student B can you address Student C’s question?
Make specific comments on particularly well thought-outposts. Especially important early on in the course, pointing out well-done posts and why they are well done can help students model future posts. When doing this, identify specifics about why the post was particularly good. For example, did the student elaborate and explain his or her thoughts, did the student explicitly connect their experiences with the course content, did the student reference back to one of the course materials or scholarly materials in the field?
- Example instructor posts
  - Student K, this post is extremely thoughtful. You explain how Theory A ties into the practices that you use within your own job and why Theory A tends to be more effective than Theory B in your situation. You also refer to the research article comparing Theories A and B which explain why these two approaches are present.
  - Student Z, you have clearly tied your own experiences back to the concept of Y and use the readings from this unit to support these connections. Additionally, you mention how the goals of this course will help you to improve your understanding of concept Y and its use within the field.
Reinforce the use of newly learned course material: This ties back to Tip #1 but instead of the instructor making a comment about how new material connects to previously learned material, the student has done so him or herself spontaneously. When this occurs, be sure to reinforce making these connections in some way so that this student and other reading the posts continue to consider how new information relates to old.
- Example Instructor posts:
  - Good job connecting how concepts X, Y, and Z all connect back to the earlier idea of A. These ideas are all connected.
  - You note how the earlier definition of concept A is important to understanding Theory B in this unit. Good job at seeing this connection.
Validate experience: Though using only personal experience and anecdotal evidence is likely not appropriate, it is important to validate a person’s personal experiences. You can nudge students to go beyond simply giving personal experiences by using Tips #2 and #6. Ask them to use the context of their experiences to evaluate some information from the course.
- Example instructor posts:
  - I understand that you have had a difficult time with your students when using Method A. It can be frustrating when what is considered a tried and true method doesn’t seem to work. Do you think there is a weakness within Method A that might be contributing to your frustrations and if so what about Method A might need adjustment?
  - It does seem like common sense would suggest that doing _____ would work better and you give a few examples of when this is the case. Can you think of situations in your experience when using the theory discussed in class might also work?
When the forum ends, post an overall summary of major points raised, issues discussed, resolutions to issues, and continued points of disagreement. A summary will help tie what could be a disjointed set of conversations into one. To do a good summary instructors will need to monitor discussions boards often and take notes about how the conversation(s) progress. Tie items back to the class materials and outcomes when possible. Take note about continued disagreements within the class and how these might mirror continued disagreements within the field.
- Example Instructor posts:
  - This forum was focused on Topic A by asking students to respond to this question “……….”. It appears that many people believed that Point 1, Point 2, and Point 3 were most relevant to their jobs, but Point 4 was often not present or was very rare. This is also what the research suggested from Reading 9. Most agreed that Method A seemed to work best for them. However in the situation of Q there appeared to be continued debate about whether Method B or Method C were most effective. This debate is also present in the research as you can see from Reading 10.

These tips were suggested by and/or inspired by content from the following Best Practices resources:

http://www.designingforlearning.info/services/writing/ecoach/tenbest.html
http://facdev.e-education.psu.edu/teach/bestpractices
http://www.brown.edu/academics/professional/faculty/online/best-practices.php

It’s August…where did the summer go? Setting up Moodle Courses.

Well, July has passed into August. Where has the summer gone! If you are like many faculty, this turn of the calendar signals the time to begin prepping for Fall semester courses. Getting syllabi written, course schedules set, assignments decided upon, and areas to focus on for improvement are just a few of the items that begin to fill out time during this month. Another is getting our Moodle courses ready for the fall. This blog entry will focus on some of the nuts-and-bolts of getting your course up and running and ready for the Fall courses when they begin. I’ll cover the following topics 1) setting up the course itself so that students are auto-enrolled, 2) options for organizing the Moodle page for your course, and 3) things to think about in terms of how you plan to use Moodle in your course.

Setting up your Moodle Pages

To set up a new Moodle page is a relatively simple activity, but there are certain things that must be done so that Moodle talks to Aims and allows your students to auto-enroll in the Moodle course. To set up a new Moodle page follow these steps:

On your home screen scroll down to the bottom and on the left hand block you will see a link that says “all courses.” Click this link
Scroll down to the bottom of this page and click “Add a New Course”
In this next screen you will need to enter in some specific information from Campus Web. This will allow your Moodle course to auto-enroll your students into the course.
1. The course full name needs to include the code for the term, the prefix, course number, course section, and course name EXACTLY as shown in CampusWeb
2. Then in the Course ID copy the Term, Prefix, and Course number, and section once again.
3. In the Course Short Name you can choose what you want to enter here.
4. Choose the appropriate category for the term.
5. In the Course Start Date I recommend starting the course on the Monday of the week that classes start so that the automatically generated dates go from Monday to Sunday.
6. The rest of the options will likely work for you. The default organization is a weekly format, which seems to work well for most.
7. Then click the Save Changes button on the bottom

You now have your new course for the term created. You can now either 1) build the course from scratch or 2) import information from a previous term. If you want to import the information from a previous course (all files, assignments, question banks, quizzes, etc.) follow these steps:
1. From the course page scroll down to the Administration block and click Import
2. From here click the old version of the course that you want to use
3. From here you will go through a series of screens where you can pick and choose what you do and do not want to have import over to the new course.
4. Once you have chosen what you want to include in the new course there is a little clean up that will be needed, specifically in any assignments or quizzes. You will need to change the due dates to the new semester because the old due dates import over.

Choosing the Organization of your Moodle Page

When you first create your new Moodle page there is an option to choose the course format.

The most common (and default choice) is a weekly format. This will organize the Moodle page into the number of weeks that you want and includes the dates of each week. The weekly format works well if you use Moodle often to have students access resources and activities. Students can then simply go to the week in the semester and see what all is due.

Another commonly used option is the topics format. This organizes the Moodle page into topics rather than weeks and does not include the automatically generated dates. A topics format may work best for accelerated Summer courses or for courses where students can move as quickly as they wish through the class (competency-type courses such as some tutorials).

There are two other options (single activity and social format) that are less likely to be of use for general classroom so I will not focus on these options in this entry

When choosing the format to use I would recommend considering the following questions:

Can students move through the course at their own pace (or at least move as quickly as they wish)? If so you might consider the Topics format.
Is it important for students to see what is due for a particular week? If so you might consider the Weekly format.
Is your course divided into relatively distinct topics? A topics format may be of use to have the Moodle page align with the way your course is organized.
Are there long periods of time when you will not use Moodle? Then a topics format may be better so that you don’t have empty weeks.
Do you use Moodle a lot in your course? Then a weekly format may be best because there will be more ‘categories’ for you to place information and activities and these will be in order by date resulting in less searching on the part of the student for the information needed.

Considerations for How You will Use Moodle

When incorporating any form of technology (high or low tech) you should first consider what the utility of the tool is. This is the same with Moodle. You may feel pressure from students or other colleagues to use Moodle more, but your choice of how to use this tool should be first driven by the purpose for using this tool. Here are a few things that Moodle can do for you and your students:

Provide a place to store documents used in the course in electronic format so that students have access to these at any time. This can include documents such as readings, syllabi, schedules, assignments, PowerPoint slides, etc. Basically this gives students who might miss class no excuse for not having materials that were passed out in class and provides students who were in class the ability to access materials if lost.
Provide a place for students to electronically turn in assignments. This is good if the assignment is easily completed in digital format (many can be, some are more difficult). Faculty can then download, grade, and turn back work electronically. There are many different options for how to turn in work, some work better for some assignments. This allows students to turn in work even outside of class (so can turn in work if miss class) and reduces the printing and paper elements of assignments.
Forums allow for students to have discussions with one another outside of class. There is an art to having forums work well which will be covered in another blog post to come in the near future. If you are interested in ways to help improve forum participation, please feel free to contact me for some of these tips or visit the Educational Technology webpage (currently in progress of being built) for a list of these tips.
Create material for students to complete before class. If you are interested in ‘flipping’ your class, Moodle can be the means by which students access and complete the work to be done before the in-class work. Resources such as the Book feature or Page feature can be used to deliver text, video, or other forms of media.
The Quiz feature has many options that allow for different forms of adaptive testing and quizzing. If you are interested in incorporating mastery learning or adaptive testing, feel free to contact me. This allows your exams to be more of a true learning experience rather than simply an evaluation of knowledge/skill. Tests can be the best form of learning if administered in the right way.

Summary of things that Moodle may help with:

Students not having ready access to the course materials.
Reclaiming lost class time turning back assignments.
Encouraging/requiring work outside of class.
Having students discuss ideas/concepts outside of class
Test grading and handwriting issues.
Flipping the classroom.
Electronic assignment submission organization.
Providing guided lessons to be completed on their own.
Adaptive testing options.
Maintaining a grade book that students can see at any time.
Reclaiming lost class time due to conference travel or other reasons for canceling face-to-face class time.

Educational Technology Returns: About me and my vision for Morningside Ed Tech.

Hello to the educational technology blog at Morningside College! This is just one of the several ways in which I intend to communicate with the faculty and instructors at Morningside about all things educational technology and teaching & learning. This first post will serve as an introduction to me and how I envision my position as educational technologist at Morningside College.

First, my name is Kim Christopherson. Many people at Morningside already know me from the 8 years that I spent in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Morningside. During my time in the psychology department I have spent time conducting some research on the use of clickers in the classroom and I have also spent several years in the curriculum review and revision process. My own background is as an educational psychologist with a cognitive focus. What this means is that I research how the human cognitive system works (and doesn’t work) as it applies to the educational environment. My focus in graduate school was researching what role technology might play in improving the performance and efficiency of student learning.

My Master’s Thesis and Doctoral Dissertation focused primarily on the use of an online study tool (series of multiple choice study questions delivered electronically) on student motivation and engagement as well as students’ ability to predict how well they would perform on an exam. I continued my research in this area when I first started at Morningside by examining the effect of the use of student response systems (i.e. clickers) in the classroom.

I very much look forward to being able to refocus my research energies back into the area of educational technology in this new position and I plan to have a research project of some kind attached to almost every course I teach. I am a willing collaborator in research, so if anyone has ideas or wants to collaborate with me please contact me.

My vision for my position as Educational Technologist at Morningside is of course guided by the job description, but I also have my own particular ideas that I would like to share in terms of how I see my role on the campus. First, one of my major duties will be to assist in the development of the online courses in Morningside’s online only programs (Graduate Education and Graduate Nursing). In this role I will use the research and best practices of online delivery to help improve and develop courses delivered via our course management system (currently Moodle).

Second, within both the graduate and undergraduate programs I will serve primarily as a consultant for faculty in the development and improvement of their online courses, but also as a consultant for the use of technology in more traditional classrooms. Part of this role of consultant will be to deliver several professional development opportunities throughout the year.

Third, I’d like to offer faculty the opportunity to travel to technology related conferences by helping to offset some of the registration and/or travel costs to faculty. I have yet to decide upon a process for requesting these funds, but I do believe that conferences like these can be extremely valuable for faculty other than myself to attend and then share with the campus community. I’d also like to offer some opportunities for summer workshops for which faculty might be compensated.

Finally, I do plan on being the point person for the most up-to-date trends, gadgets, and research in educational technology. This will frankly be a steep learning curve for myself because I’ve been out of this loop for several years now, but rest assured, once I get up-to-date I will be sharing this information with the faculty in a variety of ways including blog posts, social media posts, show-and-tell sessions, and the opportunity for faculty to test out new gadgets in their classrooms. Stay tuned for these updates!

There is one area that I will be playing a small role in and that is the role of tech support. Though I do intend to assist faculty with some support of the technology that they choose to use in their classroom, I cannot be the sole point person for all tech support. My role as Educational Technologist is more ‘big picture’ and focused on assisting faculty in implementing and deciding on what technology (if any) might be most helpful to their students. However, with that said, I do intend to work with IT and others to help better develop the support resources for technologies like Moodle and Taskstream so that faculty can easily find the help they need when a specific tech issue arises.

I’d like to end this entry with a description of how I tend to view technology in the classroom. Many faculty know me for my integration of technology in my classrooms. I’ve been using clickers since I first started at Morningside and continue to use them today. I’ve also been in the process of flipping a few of my classrooms by using videos and online testing. I’m not shy about incorporating technology. However, I do tend to do so only if I believe that there is a true benefit and this decision is typically based on some type of empirical evidence. I am a cheerleader for technology, but only if it is purposeful. Technology for technology’s sake can actually reduce learning because if done poorly, it can confuse students, overwhelm student’s cognitive abilities, and overwhelm the instructor. Thus, when I am in a consultant role you will most likely hear questions like: “what learning goals do you want to improve?,” “What do you want your students to do?,” and “What are your students struggling to do or understand?” Knowing your particular learning goal for your student can help me to consider what possible technology solutions might be available. But odds might be that I also propose low tech options as well.

If you have a particular technology you’d like to incorporate more (for example using Moodle more in your class or using Taskstream), I’ll again default back to what your course goals are first and then think about possible features to include. Research in educational and cognitive psychology tells us that it is not the delivery method of the material that matters as much as instructional design in student learning. And all instructional design needs to start with the goals/outcomes of your course. Technology can simply make some things more possible/easy to incorporate such as customized learning, incorporating multimedia, and providing more opportunities for practice (Clark & Mayer, 2011).