Engaging Students with Discussion Forums

Samar MohammedMary PowerScott AndersonCentre for Teaching Excellence

Session Outline

• General uses of discussions on campus

• Specific examples from courses

• Discussion

Some General Uses of Forums

Course management:• sign up for projects -- everyone can see

who has what topic/prof can easily see full list 

• "ask your TA" or "ask the Prof"• graded forums• course/instructor feedback forums

Some more common uses of forums

Community building:• introduce yourself• group collaboration space (projects)• use to find a group (e.g. study group;

special interest group)• community groups (external to courses)

Some General Uses of Forums

 Engagement:• wide open board -- posting for current

affairs (posting for current affairs) • group discussion (e.g. topic/question of

the week) - summary posted to whole class

• peer review of paper (or sections)• ask the presenters - discussion board

Physics 111

• Phys 111 Fall 2012 and 2013 (900 students)• Phys 111 Winter 2013 (400 students)

• One 50 minute tutorial slot for each student

(tutorials staffed by 10 TAs in Fall, 4 in Winter with 1 or 2 lead TAs responsible for managing the

online details)

Instructors epiphany:Eric Mazur - peer instructionKaren Cummings - group work with context rich questions

Development of a Problem Solving Assessment Tool for Introductory Physics Students, K. Cummings, and T. French, Proceedings of the National Physics Education Research Conference, Rochester, NY, pp 87-91, August (2001)

Peer Instruction: From Harvard to Community Colleges Nathaniel Lasry, Eric Mazur and Jessica Watkins Am. J. Phys., 76, 1066-1069 (2008).

Course structure• Group sign up – tutorial not mandatory (10% optional

weighting)

Used self-enrolment group option - 200 member max therefore multiple groups necessary

Course structure

• Students then randomly assigned to groups of 3 or 4 within tutorial section - WEEKLY.

• Students submit a reading assignment to discussion board restricted to each small group

• In tutorial – students discuss their posts then solve complex, context rich problems with group.

• Post tutorial – survey to evaluate group members, weekly quiz

Challenges:

• no easy way to generate groups from a subset of students (i.e. those registered for the Group Problem Class or even those in a particular tutorial section)

• no easy way to create a survey with data specific to teams / team members (for example questions like “Did Joe Student attend the class?”)

Group Assignment

1. Export registration list and generate groups in Excel. Provides group number and member letter (program written in C)

2. Sign up individual students to their respective groups on LEARN (in house group tool)

• Pre-tutorial writing assignment – “week in summary” submitted to group discussion

Post Group work

• Survey - to assess their team mates contribution in order to be eligible for bonus marks, their own mark is controlled by their colleagues

• Online quiz (individual work mandatory for all)

- to assess the learning of the weeks material

Survey Assessment

1. Students reference Team Member List on LEARN (generated from Excel).

2. Students fill out survey. Identical week to week.

Syde 543

Activities:• Researcher Profile• Expert Panel• Mid-Course Feedback

Researcher Profile Activity1. Students post to a general discussion topic “A” the name

of the researcher they selected.

2. Each student submits his/her draft to a discussion topic “B”- 1 page limit

3. Each student reviews and provides constructive feedback to three of his/ her classmates profiles. There was a limit of three feedbacks per initial posting.

4. Each student posts a final profile to a discussion topic “C” highlighting the changes that were made due to feedback received.

Discussion Topic A

Discussion Topic B- Draft and Feedback

Discussion Topic C- Final Submission

Instructor’s Experience

“The use of discussion forums had the advantage of keeping each student’s activities visible to the entire class, a key goal for the assignment. It also was relatively easy to setup and manage for the instructor, with minimal involvement needed to manage conflicts in selection of researchers, and a clear and easy way of assessing whether parts of the assignment were completed on time.”

J. Histon, U. of Waterloo, Using Online Learning Tools to Support Increased Engagement in Human Factors Courses: The Researcher Profile Assignment, HFES, Oct. 2013

Expert Panel• Using LEARN, students sign up with a partner to

be members of an expert panel using discussion Topic A- maximum 2 pairs per week.

• Each pair prepares a 2 page summary of the topic to submit to the instructor.

• Remaining members of the class post 2 questions for the expert panel to discussion forum B prior to class

• Expert panel leads discussion in class

Discussion Topic A Sign-up sheet

Expert Panel Discussions Forum B

Mid-course Feedback

Grading – GEOG 203

• 165 students• 9 Tutorial sections• 5 TAs• Critical reflection on readings and class• Post first board for each Tutorial section• Weekly submission for 10 weeks (90

discussion boards) – worth 20% overall

Weekly Forums

“Topics” (Boards) for each Tutorial section

Default Naming of “Topics” & Renaming

Manually set “Post First” for each Topic

Manually set “Assessment”for each Topic

Must have separate Grade items for each “Topic”

Grid View

Grid View

Reading View

Grading Detail

Assess Topic

Assess Topic - Users

Assess Topic - Assessments

Grading Detail – Assess Topic

Gradebook

Grading Detail – Gradebook

TAs Preferences Differ

• Grade directly from the board• Use Gradebook

– use separate browser to view messages and grades

• Use Excel (and upload)– File format for uploading finicky

Viewing Grade / Feedback

• If grading in the discussion boards (Topics), it MUST be linked to the gradebook otherwise there is no way for students to view the grade and feedback

Acknowledgements

We thank the instructors below for allowing us to use examples from their classes:• Joe Sanderson – PHYS 111• Jonathan Histon – SYDE 543• Steffanie Scott – GEOG 203

Comments or Questions?