Online Learning Insights
Getting students to ‘talk’
Getting students to participate in [brick and mortar] classroom discourse can be a painful process – the blank stares or worse students absorbed with their laptops or iPhones, which is disconcerting to say the least. Yet online discussion forums present further challenges due to its ‘virtual’ space.
Research suggests online discussions often fall flat — are shallow, superficial, fail to engage students and result in frustration — for students and the course instructor (Wang & Chen, 2008). From a student’s perspective, poorly designed forums can feel like busy work, a pointless exercise.
Is it really worth the effort to develop effective discussions? Yes — online class dialogue is essential to developing engagement and most importantly cognitive presence, which builds critical thinking skills.
Part 1: How to Get Students to Participate in Online Discussions
(onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com) Click to Read More →