9.1 Best Practices for Student-to-Student Interaction
Student-to-student interaction is one of the most important elements of an online course. With online courses lacking in social presence, one of the greatest challenges involves incorporating tools and techniques that can make up for the loss of social activity. For many students, meeting face-to-face in a classroom is a necessary element of the human connection.
Discussion Threads are a key component towards building a strong social presence within an online course, but simply creating one and letting it fly into the virtual student space is not enough. Maximizing student interaction, and ensuring appropriate conduct is just as important as having classroom rules and guidelines. In other words, set some rules... and participate on the discussions with your students.
Discussion Threads are a key component towards building a strong social presence within an online course, but simply creating one and letting it fly into the virtual student space is not enough. Maximizing student interaction, and ensuring appropriate conduct is just as important as having classroom rules and guidelines. In other words, set some rules... and participate on the discussions with your students.
Netiquette
Netiquette, which is Network Etiquette (basically online social behavior), includes how students should act within their online course in all student-to-student interactions. These rules include the use of Emoticons, Netspeak and appropriate communications such as maintaining a respectful tone. Netiquette is an important rule set for all online communications, and is frequently enforced in professional and academic communications. For further information on Netiquette, please review the Core Rules of Netiquette.
Emoticons
How many people do you know send text messages via phones, or communicate through online chat programs such as Skype, Yahoo Messenger, Facebook chat and others? Perhaps you are one! In the world of online communications, there is a way for individuals to express emotions with unique (sometimes animated) graphics called Emoticons.
Emoticons including a variety of emotional expressions that cover all of the basics as well as some of the more eccentric emotions. When communicating a statement, it can be exceptionally difficult to read an individuals emotional state through words alone.
For example: This essay has many quality points, however, I found that the information could be improved with some added research from more recent sources.
Many individuals might see the above statement as overly critical, depending on perspective. However, add a smiley emoticon to the end and the comment is noted as a positive attempt to assist rather than to critically assault another's work.
For example: This essay has many quality points, however, I found that the information could be improved with some added research from more recent sources.
Many individuals might see the above statement as overly critical, depending on perspective. However, add a smiley emoticon to the end and the comment is noted as a positive attempt to assist rather than to critically assault another's work.
Netspeak
Fyi, Netspeak is not for professional and academic communications. Netspeak is a form of online communications where abbreviations of extensive terminology is typed in place of the words themselves. Like the fyi at the start of the sentence above, which stands for For Your Information, Netspeak is reserved for short personal communications that have no place in a professional or academic message. Not only is Netspeak viewed as unprofessional in almost every form of communication, but it can make student-to-student interaction complicated for students with limited knowledge about technology.
Responses
When creating a Discussion Thread, the most important component, outside of the content itself, includes response requirements. Read the example below.
Identify and explain the primary reasons that the leaves on a flower are green. Provide resources to support your claim, and respond to your peers.
Based on the provided content, students understand that the purpose of the discussion is to identify the reasons the leaves on flower are green and that they are expected to explain the reasons with supporting research. However, how many sources should they use? How long is their post supposed to be? They are asked to respond to their peers, but how many peers must they respond too? A student may just as well assume that they are required to respond to all of their peers or only one to meet the requirement.
Creating detailed, specific requirements for a discussion allows students to complete the task based on instructor expectations without any surprises. Imagine the stress on behalf of a student when they only respond to one of their peers, but loose points because they did not respond to two or three. How is the student supposed to know the expectation if it is not stated? Read the example below.
Creating detailed, specific requirements for a discussion allows students to complete the task based on instructor expectations without any surprises. Imagine the stress on behalf of a student when they only respond to one of their peers, but loose points because they did not respond to two or three. How is the student supposed to know the expectation if it is not stated? Read the example below.
Identify and explain the primary reasons that the leaves on a flower are green. Include a minimum of two reliable sources printed in the past five years to support your explanation.
Note: Reliable sources include publications that are based in scientific facts with recorded results.
Post your initial response to this discussion by Monday at 11:00 PM. Your initial post must contain a minimum of 150 words. Post two replies to your peers by Friday at 11:00 PM. Your responses must contain a minimum of 50 words each.
Note: Reliable sources include publications that are based in scientific facts with recorded results.
Post your initial response to this discussion by Monday at 11:00 PM. Your initial post must contain a minimum of 150 words. Post two replies to your peers by Friday at 11:00 PM. Your responses must contain a minimum of 50 words each.
Note how the discussion includes the required purpose as well as an explanation of the instructors idea of a reliable source. Additionally, the expectations for the posts are clearly stated with the inclusion of due dates, times and response lengths based on words.
Many instructors present required response lengths, but often times based on a number of sentences or characters (individual letters, spaces and punctuation marks which take up space within a text field), but these cause confusion for most students. For example, how long is a sentence? Some individuals think a sentence requires five words. Some say seven words. Depending on the context, a sentence could even be four or twelve words. This creates a confusing element of uncertainty for students as an instructor may mean six to eight words per sentence, but this is not stated.
Why not include the requirements for sentence length (6-8 words per sentence) with a post length requirement measured by sentences? This creates difficulty in writing for students. Remember that not all students are writers, and would have to base their writing style on meeting so many words for every sentence.
Providing a specific word requirement allows students to write more freely while still maintaining a sufficient expectation for students to be successful.
Many instructors present required response lengths, but often times based on a number of sentences or characters (individual letters, spaces and punctuation marks which take up space within a text field), but these cause confusion for most students. For example, how long is a sentence? Some individuals think a sentence requires five words. Some say seven words. Depending on the context, a sentence could even be four or twelve words. This creates a confusing element of uncertainty for students as an instructor may mean six to eight words per sentence, but this is not stated.
Why not include the requirements for sentence length (6-8 words per sentence) with a post length requirement measured by sentences? This creates difficulty in writing for students. Remember that not all students are writers, and would have to base their writing style on meeting so many words for every sentence.
Providing a specific word requirement allows students to write more freely while still maintaining a sufficient expectation for students to be successful.
Tone
Writing tone includes maintaining a sense of respect within student-to-student interaction. This includes responding with consideration for the feelings and emotions of others. Many students may take extreme offense to any criticisms about their work. Others may be more accepting. Determining a difference between them could take almost the entire semester.
A fair portion of online students are those that are taking classes online because they are introverted, and handle communicating over the net more easily and with greater clarity than being put on the spot in a classroom. However, providing blunt and quick criticisms of their efforts can have as much of a negative effect as asking them to stand up and answer a question in a classroom. Read the example below.
A fair portion of online students are those that are taking classes online because they are introverted, and handle communicating over the net more easily and with greater clarity than being put on the spot in a classroom. However, providing blunt and quick criticisms of their efforts can have as much of a negative effect as asking them to stand up and answer a question in a classroom. Read the example below.
Hi Christine! After reading your response to our discussion this week, your post seems to meet the word length, but I do not see any effort put towards aligning the content to the criteria of the discussion parameters. Why did you not ask any questions on the Q&A board? You are aware that there are tutors who can assist you with your writing?
Imagine that you are a student, and received this sort of feedback on a discussion from a peer. Seems a little blunt, does it not? Many students would feel unsettled and possibly afraid to communicate back. The other student may have meant well, but with only this response to go by it is very difficult to tell. Based on this feedback, a student might only see offense and harsh criticism.
Assuming that in the same situation students consider the concerns of their peers, a more gentle response might look something like the following:
Assuming that in the same situation students consider the concerns of their peers, a more gentle response might look something like the following:
Hi Christine! After reading your response to our discussion this week, I can tell that you may have struggled a little bit with the content. You did a great job meeting the word requirements, but I think the instructor may take some credit for the lack of sources. I found some great sources at the following URL: <insert URL>. If you need further assistance please let me know. I had some troubles coming up with a strong argument myself, so maybe we could collaborate on next weeks topic? Let me know!
Note how the tone of the student seems supportive, encouraging and even informative? Emphasizing the importance of positive tone during discussions should be a goal for any online course. Happy students make for more engaging students!
Next Steps
When you are ready, continue to 9.2 Creating Discussions in Blackboard.