double take

A problem with obligatory participation in forums is that threaded discussions are not used to create something together, a final unified project. In an online course with a fixed schedule, the discussions are too rigid and seem to have an expiration date. As if last week’s discussion is not connected with the following discussions. There is no sense of continuity, unless learners go back to past forums and read them again.

Identified challenges

When the student is being evaluated by his participation in the weekly online forums, sometimes he feels forced to participated in “limp and lifeless” discussion. The factor of being required to say something has some challenges in the online environment, where the student may:

• Feel afraid of saying something stupid
• Feel that someone else has already mentioned his idea and there is nothing more to add
• Quickly agree with something someone said without adding additional thought
• Quickly give a weak tweak of support
• Glean, recycle and post

More than that, from classmates reading the answers, it may seem dry or meaningless when:

• The questions are inadequate, uninspiring or irrelevant;
• The questions that are too narrow for divergent thought;
• The familiarity/similarity of answers lulls the reader into mental lethargy;
• The questions and answers show lack of preparation and motivation.

Questions, threads and Beyond!

My suggestion would be to incorporate the discussion into a social notebook, where everybody can add a page, a graph, a drawing, a stick-note, a comment in pink ink! The notebook would have a different structure, more anarchic, flexible and with space for real collaboration. As if all students engaged in that class were authors of a final online social notebook that could be used for future references.