Draves (2002) describes collaborative interaction as the “heart and soul of an online course.” Discussion among students in the online class has becomes one of the most widely used pedagogical strategies to facilitate such collaborative interaction. As such, instructional designers are charged with the task of designing meaningful discussion activities and assessing them effectively. Horton (2006) suggest that the success of effective online learning activities “depends on well-designed online discussions” (p. 464). Likewise, assessment of online discussion can provide students with a clear indication of the expectations for participation/discussion and grading related to performance. These issues suggest that the pivotal role instructional designer play and the need for their effectiveness.
Begin by reflecting on this week’s readings by Horton (2006) Chapter 9, “Design for the Virtual Classroom” (pp. 463–471), Oosterhof, Conrad, and Ely (2008) (Chapters 13-14), and your own experiences as a student in online courses. Then, consider the following questions:
- What are the essential features of a well-designed online discussion activity?
- What are the challenges of designing online discussion activity?
- What strategies can an instructional designer use to address the challenges of online discussion?
- What assessment strategies increase meaningful participation and effective evaluation?
With these thoughts in mind, proceed to this week’s Discussion prompt.
By Wednesday:
Post your thoughts about the following questions:
By Wednesday:
Post your thoughts about the following questions:
- In your previous online courses, what aspects of the discussion activities facilitated and/or inhibited your meaningful participation?
- What are the pros and cons of using peer, self, and instructor assessment to facilitate meaningful online discussions?
- How might an instructor benefits from having the different pieces of evaluative information produced by incorporating peer, self, and instructor assessment of a discussion activity? What is the cost to the instructor to implement and manage all three forms or assessment? How might these issues impact your decision as an instructional designer to include these three types of assessment into the online course?
Please review the rubric if you are unclear of the expectations for this assignment.
Discussion Rubric. Modified from Original Walden University Discussion Rubric. Retrieved August 9, 2011, from http://inside.waldenu.edu/c/Student_Faculty/StudentFaculty_15198.htm
Oosterhof, A., Conrad, R.-M., & Ely, D. P. (2008). Assessing learners online. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Book Excerpt: E-Learning by Design
(Horton, W., Designing for the Virtual Classroom, E-Learning by Design). Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons Inc. Used with permission from John Wiley & Sons Inc. via the Copyright Clearance Center.
(Horton, W., Designing for the Virtual Classroom, E-Learning by Design). Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons Inc. Used with permission from John Wiley & Sons Inc. via the Copyright Clearance Center.
In my experience, there are two things that facilitate online discussion. The first is a thought-provoking discussion prompt. To me, a sign of an effective discussion prompt is that makes me want to answer the question. The question sticks in my mind and provokes multiple thoughts. It tend to like more practical questions, those that make me think about how to apply what I am learning.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing stimulates online discussion is when someone replies to what I have posted. My best experience with online discussion was a course where I had a “discussion buddy”. Every week I would post on Wednesday night and my buddy would reply Thursday morning with a thoughtful question to help me elaborate on one or two significant points. I would always respond in kind to her posts.
What kills online discussion is getting no response at all. Lack of response makes you feel like you are an idiot and/or nobody likes you.
With regard to the three way (or “fishbowl") method of assessment, the main advantage is that is provides assessment from three different perspectives. The instructor is looking for mastery of the course material, the student is forced to think about how they are being assessed and the peer is thinking about the value of the contributions to the online community. This disadvantage to this approach for the instructor is the extra work generated by the additional responses. Thus for a weekly discussion, this may be overkill. That is, one discussion thread may not provide sufficient detail to perform a meaningful assessment.
From an instructional design perspective, three- way assessment would be used when the learning community for a course has been established (three to four weeks into the class). One way the instructional designer can help is to create rubrics for each of the perspectives.
Stephen
References:
Video: Paloff, R. & Pratt, K. “Assessing Interaction and Collaboration in Online Environments”
Oosterhof, A., Conrad, R.-M., & Ely, D. P. (2008). Assessing learners online. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Stephen,
ReplyDeleteThanks you for your thoughtful responses. I completely agree that thought provoking questions are effective at engaging learners. This also make me reflect on my effectiveness at choosing thought provoking questions for all of my students considering their varied backgrounds. This also appears to raise a question regarding the relationship between the course creator (instructional designer) and course implementer (instructor). Does this suggest, to some degree, that courses with pre-designed discussion topics may be limited without knowledge of the student’s interest and backgrounds?
I also agree that what kills online dialogue is the “no response.” It doesn’t seem like there is much the instructor can do to prevent an individual students for failing to respond to a specific dialogue post or peer response. However, the designer and/or instructor can structure dialogues in groups of three or more students to minimize the possibility that no one response.
I realize that time is running out on our weekend and we have multiple assignments due Sunday, but please provide any evaluative comments you may have on this assignment.
Thanks.
Rudy
Melisa,
ReplyDeleteI got your e-mail with your response, but it is not posted here on my blog. I will re-post with your permission, however, in the meantime, here are my comments in response to your original post.
You stated that some “learners may hinder their progress by rating themselves higher” than their actual performance level. I think this is a very valid point and it raises the question of whether an instructor should address inflated self-rating with the student directly?
Also, thanks for identifying the lack of clarity in the blog instructions. I used the format that we’ve had throughout this course, but two of the people who’ve responded have chosen different paths in their response. So the instructions should be made clearer.
Thank you for your thoughtful post.
Rudy
Here are my comments on the discussion prompts:
ReplyDeleteOverall, excellent job. You hit all the points required in the assignment. I found the discussion prompts easy to understand and they provoked several thoughts. I could have written more, but it was getting late and I was running out gas. But I think I answered most of the questions you asked.
My only critique is more of personal preference. That is, the format and style of your posting looked just the Walden format used in the course. So no extra credit for originality.
But to reiterate, I found the discussion prompts well-written and thought-provoking.
Stephen
Rudy,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your response. You have my permission to post on this page. I'm not sure why it was not working.
Melisa
Original Post of Melissa Cobb,
ReplyDelete(Aug 12, 2011 @ 9:01pm CST)
In your previous online courses, what aspects of the discussion activities facilitated and/or inhibited your meaningful participation?
The discussion activites were a great way for me to fully understand the course material. Sometimes through discussion and other colleague's insights, the material makes more sense and I begin to notice myself understanding the content in a different way. If the student posted their discussion without any reference to me, or the discussion went over my head, I usually stopped participating. I felt like I may have been on a different level as the others.
What are the pros and cons of using peer, self, and instructor assessment to facilitate meaningful online discussions?
Using self-assessments is a great way for learners to better understand their level of comprehension for the material. It serves as an additional check in to their progress. This helps the instructor by gaining insight to the learner's own assessment of their knowledge and can compare the student's assessment with the instructor's own assessment of the student. While they are a good indiciator, it is dependent on the student answering the self-assessment accurately and honestly. Some learners may hinder their progress by rating themselves higher in comprehension then they really are.
Peer reviews are also great in that it allows the student to gain insight to their peers perspective of their contributions. It also encourages the student to contribute and being successful. Both for the team and a good review! This is especially great for the instructor who may not be present in side discussions of a group project (for example) and can gain insight to the level of participation for each student.
On the otherhand, peer reviews can be an emotional process. Not all students will respect the opinion of their peers or feel it is fair or accruate. Peer reviews can be very subjective.
How might an instructor benefits from having the different pieces of evaluative information produced by incorporating peer, self, and instructor assessment of a discussion activity?
An instructor can use the benefits of the different types of assessments to help them see how well the student is progressing. While the instructor will continue to design and use their own assessments, the perspective of the peer and the learner themselves will help the instructor see what they could not otherwise.
What is the cost to the instructor to implement and manage all three forms or assessment?
The cost with implementing and managing all three forms is mainly time. If the instructor creates the assessments online and posts it to that school's e-learning webpage, there may not be any additional costs involved, other than the time it takes for the instructor to design the assessment.
How might these issues impact your decision as an instructional designer to include these three types of assessment into the online course
From reviewing the chapter and from my own personal experiences, I would incorporate all three types of assessments. I would definitely use my own assesment of the project and mix it with an individual's self-assessment. I would also use peer reviews for important team projects in which the student is expected to contribute and communicate outside of classtime where I am not present.
EVALUATION OF THIS POST:
It wasn't clear to me in the assignment if we were just supposed to answer the discussion blog you created and/or also post our ideas of your discussion. So, I'm doing both.
I think your post does a good job helping the learner really think about the importance of the different types of assessment (self, peer, and instructor) to help evaluate if it is something they would use personally as an instructional designer.
Reflections
ReplyDeleteConsidering the fact that there were only two people connected to my post, I thought we had a meaningful exchange. I wouldn’t describe it as lively, but both respondents took the time to address the specific issues raised by the discussion prompt. Considering the other assignments due this week, I was impressed by the quality of my fellow classmates. There was no parroting or meaningless cutting and pasting of the weekly readings.
Reflecting on my conversation with Stephen leads me to believe that it is possible to increase student engagement by tapping into their interest along with more thought provoking prompts. Second, removing or reducing the possibility of greater social isolation that might occur from a students not receiving feedback from peers leads me to ensure any peer discussion is group based of at least three students.
It is also apparent that the format of giving the students a few questions to consider and then asking a specific question to respond to is confusing. My guess is that the students will respond to that which s/he is most comfortable, knowledgeable and interested in. So, if model questions vary significantly, then I can expect a broad range of responses. That may be fine depending on the objective or it may make assessment more difficult. Most importantly, the discussion prompts must engage students in the conversations pertinent to the learning objective. Decisions by the instructional designer and instructor must ensure that the discussion is meaningful and focused.
Rudy