Instruction

Here are examples of the instructional techniques used by these professors to stimulate critical thinking and learning in their courses.You may scroll down through the page, or jump to a specific point by clicking on the links in the left column.

Put your grading schema in writing to let students know what your expectations are. Possible criteria for grading: quantity, quality, peer evaluation, or a mix of these.

These strategies were highlighted under Interaction, but also apply to Instruction.

Dr. Groulx rolls online participation into a larger assessment of class participation.

"Some students prefer to be more active in one context than another, this allows for individual differences."

The highest percentage value placed on the ADB discussions is in Dr. Lackey's course where 50% of the grade comes from the students' participation.

"I systematically review and track the quality and quantity of student postings. I evaluate each response to each question for each lesson (usually 8 - 12 questions) on a scale of 1 - 3. A 1 is a meaningful contribution, a 2 is a good attempt but off-target, and a 3 is an obviously unprepared response (in addition, a blank is no response). I accumulate student scores over several lessons and look for balance in coverage of materials of the course, including problem-solving efforts. There is a lot of subjectivity in this approach, however, the large number of questions is very helpful in identifying patterns of students' study and output."

Out of the six who have built in a grading schema tied to the discussions, only one uses quantitative analysis as the sole measurement. All of the others use a mixture of quantity and quality to assess course participation in the discussions. The methods used in this type of mixed assessment are as individual as the professor.

Dr. Page stated that his method is crude.

"I judge by the volume and the quality of questions and answers. It could be that one or two really great thoughts would get the full 10%."

Dr. Hale uses this type of mixed criteria, but adds peer evaluation.

"Peer evaluation is mostly an evaluation of individual contributions to the group effort. Sometimes it's as simple as an email to me telling me their perception of the individual contributions to the group project and why. In other cases, I use the following four questions (responses come as emails to me).

1. Did your group apply itself to the task-at-hand?
2. Were you comfortable with the quality of the finished product?
3. How would you characterize the average level of effort by group members: excellent, very good, fair, poor? Why?
4. How would you assess your own contribution to the group?

The debate section in this class uses an adjudication process as part of the evaluation process."

Post questions that will stimulate discussion; re-word the questions if necessary to elicit better responses.

Dr. Groulx employs her own style of questioning

"I'll 'lead' when there's a lull or people are stuck thinking about something from only one perspective, but I'll let most discussions die a natural death. There was one time last semester when I was trying to prompt people to think about the "Heroes and holidays" approach to multicultural teaching. That's when a teacher selects famous people from an ethnic group to study, and has celebrations when various ethnic holidays come around, and if that's all the teacher does it can trivialize the whole idea of multiculturalism. Well, I asked about "heroes and holidays" as a discussion starter on the board, and about a dozen students all wrote in about what a great idea they thought it was."

"Then I got back in and wrote something about how 'some people say that this trivializes the notion of multicultural teaching'. This did finally steer the discussion toward a deeper kind of thinking about what multicultural teaching might entail, but I'm not sure everyone "got it." She adds, "I try to let questions stay open and allow people to explore."

Dr. Page uses questions as his main teaching tool.

"I ask lots of questions, they (the students) must be encouraged to do a lot more that just read the online materials - they must think if they are to be able to reason about the subject matter. I can ask Socratic questions that may not have a 'right answer', but are designed to cause thought and sometimes argument."

He also sends out different questions to different students via email. "These are non-trivial questions and require thought, maybe even extra reading/research."

Give LOTS of timely feedback. Establish in your syllabus or course guidelines a time frame in which you will respond to postings.

"If you don't post on Saturdays, let them know." says Dr. Hale, "we do it for email, do it for your online discussions."

Many professors say they will respond within 72 hours, and then do it. If they are going to be out of town, they will post a message saying so.

For students who are totally at a distance, feedback is the only way they have to connect to the instructor and other students.

Don't LECTURE in ADB; re-work your content if need be to make it more learner-centered, project-based, or collaborative.

The online environment encourages student-centered learning. It isn't conducive to the "Sage of the Stage" type of lecturing, so instructors who encourage peer to peer learning and become more of a facilitator, mentor, "Guide on the Side", are typically more effective in this setting by helping participants master course objectives through discussion and participation (Rossman, 1999).

Dr. Groulx shares.

"I have to work at not interjecting too often and trying to encourage students to communicate among themselves rather than directing their comments to me. It's hard to resist jumping in there and TEACHING all the time."

Dr. Hale agrees.

The biggest challenge "is knowing when to respond and when to keep quiet and let the other students respond."

Divide class into smaller groups for discussions and collaboration. Have them assign one person who will post the groups' response.

Dr. Hadaway allows her students to break into small groups naturally

"This happens when students respond to each other".

Others put students into groups or teams and expect them to interact and collaborate, then report back to the class, many times having one person post a summary or response for the entire group.

Drs. Groulx, Lackey, and Williams all employ small group activities in their classes.

Dr. Lackey posts Harvard Business cases that the groups have to analyze and respond to.

Dr. Williams posts Wall Street Journal articles and requests a response.

Dr. Groulx has the group appoint one person to post the group's response to the activity.

Put a time-limit on how long the discussion will be open.

Drs. Lackey and Williams keep the time limit for each discussion to one week. The students must post within that week time interval to get credit.

This is an effective time management for both the instructor and students. It also helps alleviate the students being overwhelmed with postings being scattered over many different topics and times.

Students also perceive others who do not post until the last minute or until after the discussion has 'died', as being slackers, not pulling their weight.

Others allow the discussion to die a natural death, or post a summary of the main topics discussed, thus bringing the discussion to a close.

Resist the temptation to jump in too often, don't teach, but let the discussions flow, only stepping in when required or necessary.

Dr. Lackey uses this technique after students have started interacting.

"I check on discussion during the week, but am actually letting the discussion run its course through the week and then I follow up with comments."

Dr. Groulx employs her own style of questioning.

"I'll 'lead' when there's a lull or people are stuck thinking about something from only one perspective, but I'll let most discussions die a natural death.

As a moderator, the instructor can watch the flow of conversation and step in only when necessary:

• perhaps to pose a question that will stimulate thought and responses from a different perspective
• to 'support' or 'protect' a participant who has expressed an idea or opinion not in agreement with the majority of the class
• to effectively end a discussion by posting a summary of the conversation.

Sometimes the challenge for the instructor is knowing when to step in and when to remain observant but silent.

Dr. Hale shares her method of leading

"The only thing I do initially in WebBoardTM is to set up the threads that the students will use or have the Network Admin add conferences if necessary.

Then I stay away from posting until one of several things happens:

If there is a direct request to me for a response, I respond immediately, sometimes with an answer; sometimes with a question.

If someone is giving someone else some incorrect information, I jump right in. I usually clarify or correct my own errors in e-mail and in WebBoard.

If someone says or does something that deserves celebrating, I jump right in (e.g., when a student finally successfully attached a document; when a student makes a clear concise post of a difficult concept, etc.).

I sometimes post to reinforce a student's comment or to get the students to extend the comments of a student. Content-related comments are somewhat more sporadic than the others."

It is important for instructors to act immediately if there are strong opinions expressed and postings start taking on an emotional nature. Flaming in these discussions can make everyone uncomfortable and effectively shut down the interaction. One method of dealing with this is through private emails to the offending participant. (Salmon, 2000)

Write a summary of the discussion to bring it to a close.

This technique not only brings the discussion to a close, but it helps the students' collect their thoughts, notes, ask for any last minute clarification, tie up loose ends, etc. for that discussion . Then they are ready for the next discussion to start.

Manage emotionally charge discussions directly with individuals through email or phone calls.

Dr. Groulx adds

"Another discussion we got into that can generate quite a bit of opinion is about "punishment" as a way to discipline in school. The students are pretty good about challenging and giving opinions in safe and respectful ways. If I see things might get touchy I'll inject a comment that tries to protect a person's right-to-speak but also indicates there are other perspectives that people can offer."

In the next two sections of the web site, I'd like to share the professors comments about the challenges and biggest benefits of using ADB in their courses.