Interaction

Here are some of the ways the professors have been able to increase interaction in their courses using ADB. You may scroll down through these strategies, or jump to a specific strategy by clicking on the links in the left column.

Encourage participation by letting your students know that ADB is available and how to access it. Lead them through this process the first time. Have technical support resources ready at the beginning of the semester.

Dr. Hanna lets her students know that the board is available for posting questions. She demonstrates how to access the board in one of her lectures.

Dr. Groulx takes her students to the lab and shows them how to post for the first ime. She has them start posting to the first discussion during this time, answering questions and making sure that everyone has had a chance to post before they leave.

Students who are new to this type of communication may 'browse' for awhile until they become comfortable. When they feel at 'home' with the environment, both technically and socially, they will begin to post.

Start the discussions: post a question, post your thoughts or ideas, and post your introduction.

Dr. Page asks lots of Socratic type questions and expects responses and discussion.

Dr. Groulx posts ice-breaker questions, ask small groups to nominate one person to post a summary about their group work. She also posts a KWL to ask students what they know and want to know about a topic.

"KWL stands for 'what do you know - what do you want to know -- it's an informal sort of pre-assessment approach -- and 'what did you learn' as a post-assessment that hopefully brings closure to the K and W steps. It's just one of many ways to invite people to be curious and also to find out what ideas they already have about a topic."

Establish the level of informality. Model this in your introduction. Tell them if you like to be called by your first name or a title.

Presenting a personal introduction the first week of the semester can help 'close the distance' between students and the instructor and foster a feeling of connection that is often missing in online environments. The instructor can initiate this by posting their own introduction first, including personal details about themselves, such as family, hobbies or other 'non-teaching' aspects of their lives.

By integrating a 'personal' or 'informal' aspect into the discussion boards, all participants are encouraged to view the instructor and fellow participants as real people who face similar stresses and concerns. This also encourages participation.

On the other hand, if the atmosphere is formal, students might think that their postings will be scrutinized as closely as a final paper, and more reluctant to post. This will inhibit the flow of conversation and thus the true benefits of this type of communication (Santo, 2000).

Many have found that posting a picture of themselves has helped others feel connected because they have a mental image to attach to the postings. Also, instructors can let them know if they want to be addressed by their first name or not. (Rossman, 1999)

Dr. Hadaway sets the example by posting her own 'reflection' on the board and then emailing her students to let them know it's on WebBoard and to encourage them to read it.

"A reflection is simply a contribution to class discussion, a reflection of their views about the content in the book, module readings, or packet that sparks a thought or a desire to share more information."

Provide LOTS of encouragement and support. Model this type of online behavior for your students. Commend individuals via email.

Drs. Hughes and Hale employ some 'hand-holding' techniques of encouragement and reinforcement by way of sending individual emails to students.

Dr. Hale gives lots of positive feedback and comments on "how much they have to offer and how important it is to share that knowledge and those experiences with others." She feels that this effectively models behavior for her students.

She relates one experience.

" A couple of times early in the semester, students posted that they didn't have the experience of others or were "only" an elementary physical education teacher, for example. Other students popped right in, before I even got there, to tell the student of the value of his/her input and perspective. I like to think that if I model a supportive environment, my students will do the same. Haven't been disappointed yet !"

Dr. Lackey says

"If someone is slow to discuss, I will suggest a strategy for them to use. It may be as simple as planning ahead and posting a discussion point very early in the time interval...usually, simple encouragement works."

Have a posting requirement written in your syllabus or course expectations. Reinforce this in your comments with each new discussion.

Most of the instructors I interviewed require participation and tie a percentage of the grade into this measurement. Two of the professors had specific requirement; for example, Dr. Hadaway requires that each student must post one reflection each week and respond to at least 3 classmates' reflections.

Dr. Hanna uses ADB only as an information source to enhance her F2F class and doesn't include it in her grading schema. The students are encouraged to post questions and read basic course announcements on the board.

Dr. Hughes does not demand online postings, but is using the discussion board as a tool to insure that in-class discussion is successful "in quality, quantity, and inclusiveness"

Make participation a requirement as part of the course grade. State this very clearly in your syllabus.

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."

Suggest time management strategies for students who are slow to post.

In addition to encouraging participation, putting a time limit on how long the discussion will be open for responses has helped keep the entire class "together". This helps alleviate some of the frustration that both students and instructors might experience with information overload and disjointedness that might occur when postings come in over a period of time. Those who do not post or post late are viewed by fellow participants as not pulling their weight or slacking off (Rossman, 1999).

Dr. Lackey makes his assignments due within a weekly time interval.

Dr. Williams also limits the discussions to a week, one of the factors that he attributes to the discussion boards being a successful teaching tool for him.

Provide Netiquette Guidelines to all participants.

It is important to set out expectations and guidelines for behavior in ADB. Not too long ago the term "flaming' came into being as a result of discussion participants posting scathing remarks in response to others posting. It seems much easier for people to become easily offended, angry, or defensive because the lack of auditory and visual cues eliminated the non-verbal aspect of communication that we rely on intuitively to filter others comments. Additionally, because this is 'faceless' communication, it is easier for people to write things they wouldn't normally say in F2F communication.

As a result of this phenomena, emoticons have been created to try to put some of those cues back into the conversation. Smileys are used frequently in online discussions to convey emotion.

For example:

:-) happy, humorous
:-( unhappy
:-O shocked
;-) winking
:-} wry, ironic
<g> Grin
<s> Sigh
<VBG> Very big grin

For the ultimate resource for emoticons, go to http://www.netlingo.com/smiley.cfm

Another well-known rule is to not type in ALL CAPS, because it is interpreted as yelling online.

Even without these tactile ways of inserting emotion into online posting, experienced online users can inject their personality into their writings very effectively (Feenburg, 1989).

It is recommended that a Netiquette Guidelines document be built into the syllabus or course requirements. There are abundant web sites with Netiquette guidelines available. One of the better ones is found at www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html. You will find the core rules of Netiquette as excepted from the book Netiquette by Virginian Shea.

I've listed a couple of additional links to helpful sites in the Resources section of this web site.

Set up separate discussion areas for social discussions between students.

Some professors encourage socializing in the discussions whereas others do not.

"I want to keep the focus on the course", shares Dr. Hughes.

Dr. Hadaway stresses "all posting should relate to course content and should be positive and professional."

Overall, inappropriate socializing did not seem to occur on ADB, so most of the professors did not feel that it was an issue. For those who didn't mind socializing or encouraged it, separate discussion threads were set up where students could post off-topic.

Dr. Hale has created the 'Sports Club' and 'Kickin It With Kines' - seperate topics in the WebBoard conferences.

"Sports Club is part of the KINE6320 course, but "Kickin It With Kines" is a conference room for all students enrolled in any online courses in the Kinesiology Masters Program. Posts to "Kickin It" are trivial -- some excitement about the NFL Playoffs and Super Bowl. Not much activity since the courses started. Compared to the work areas, there is little activity in Sports Club. However, there is considerable socialization and supportive comments wihin the work groups. There are no requirements to post in Sports Club other than the introductory posts in the very beginning of the course."