I was excited by the possibilities presented by this online form of bringing up interesting points from the reading. The students, I thought, would be challenged by having to present something new to the conversation, rather than all of them repeating the same detail. In addition, I thought that the online format would encourage them to hold a discussion, since they all spend hours commenting on each other's posts on various forms of social media.
I quickly learned that there are a few drawbacks to using Edmodo for discussion.
Requiring a post doesn't automatically facilitate discussion. Some students simply wrote throw-away comments that didn't encourage any sort of response. On the other hand, a few students asked questions that I found insightful and thought-provoking, but no one answered. And why should they? This wasn't a requirement, and they only had one night to complete the assignment. One student in particular asked challenging questions about human nature that I'm fairly certain no one saw except me.
What a waste of valuable thinking! I wouldn't consider this assignment a complete failure, because some great ideas came out of it-- both from my students and from me (on my end, how to better hold a "discussion" in the future!).
This week, I'm going to try a different format. I searched the web for a discussion site that allows for students to post direct replies to each other's comments, but that is still private in order to protect my students. I found a site called Collaborize Classroom, which has a variety of discussion features, including the ability to attach a poll question (yes or no, multiple choice, even a voting option that allows students to suggest answers) to a discussion thread.
I'm going to make a few changes to the way I frame the discussion as well:
- Making the assignment a week-long project to give students time to think and make meaningful replies
- Requiring students to compose thoughtful replies to each other's posts
- Posting rules of online discussion etiquette to ensure that students treat this as an academic discussion, not an informal, social chat
Here's an example of one discussion prompt:
I'm hoping that this way of holding a digital discussion will more closely resemble the types of online conversations I'm used to participating in for graduate school, which is another plus-- if students do pursue higher education, they will be used to composing in this format.
Do you have any suggestions for how I will implement this discussion this week? Have you ever tried anything similar? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I've never been in a class (even in graduate school) where it felt productive to have to post on online discussion boards, for the reasons you state--there was no incentive to actually have a conversation. What about assigning three or four "instigators" per session to post initial questions/thoughts, and having the rest of the class respond to one or more of them? (Maybe requiring everyone to post at least twice?) But I don't know that anything will hold up to face-to-face, in-class discussion, and I don't think that'll be any failing of yours.
ReplyDeleteYour idea to have students act as facilitators is an excellent one, which I'll have to try out in the future. The thought behind an online discussion in lieu of a face-to-face one, at least for secondary students, is that they have more time to formulate an answer and gather evidence to support their ideas. In addition, with large class sizes, it makes it possible for students whose voices would go unheard in a 40-minute block to have their say, especially those who are timid. I actually held a graded class discussion in which a few students were so afraid to speak that they took a zero rather than talk. We'll have to see what comes of the online discussion!
DeleteCori, If you would like I can email you my Edmodo posting rubric, which I use for grading the online discussions I require on Edmodo. Also, make sure you model for the students what you consider a "meets standard" response/post/question and what you consider a "below standard" response. I often use posts from the previous year (without the students' names) for the purpose.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the suggestion about modeling a post! I often forget when introducing new technologies that I should provide a proper model first.
DeleteCori,
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you were able to recognize the limitations of the initial project, and that you reflected and re-thought, then developed a new plan of action. That is the best way to learn how to integrate technology in the classroom...through trial and error! My question is that how will you bring this back into the classroom? I love the wiki discussion that we have, but remember...we are only a class of 7. Lindsay brings up a great idea of having student investigators, but I would like to extend on that idea.
Why not have a small group of students (or one student if you are doing this all year) review the posts then pick out some of the common themes to share in the physical classroom? This encourages re-reading, critical thinking and the development of ideas. I love that you were able to re-configure this and that your classmates had some valuable feeback. i look forward to hearing how things go in the future!
You make a good point. Perhaps I could use the discussion this week to model how student groups would facilitate discussion in the future. In coming weeks, I could assign groups to host an online discussion for which they develop the questions, provide feedback, and bring in the results to share with the class. It could be an extension of what is happening in the classroom, but if the students have greater ownership over it, I can imagine it would be more beneficial!
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