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Professors find that role-playing, peer feedback and
other icebreakers get students talking on the Web.
BY BRIDGET MURRAY
Monitor staff
Web discussions are gaining popularity in academe as a
way to spur intellectual exchange among students outside of
regular class time. In fact, a recent survey by the Campus
Computing Project finds at least a quarter of college courses
have their own Web pages, many of them with discussion areas.
| 54
percent of college courses use e-mail, up from 20
percent in 1995.
Nearly 40 percent of college courses use Web
resources in the syllabus, up from 10 percent in
1995.
More than a quarter of college courses have a Web
page, up from under 10 percent in 1995.
Source: 1999 Campus Computing Survey of 557
public and private
colleges. | But, as
convenient as it is to log on any time and discuss the latest
course reading with classmates, students often find that the
online world doesn't prompt the same kind of bonding,
camaraderie or even conflict that face-to-face discussions do.
Students respond less directly to one another on the Web
because they can't see each other. Often they throw out
random, isolated thoughts, and the discussion founders.
To make discussion more enticing and productive online,
some psychology professors are developing ways to foster more
bonding and social interaction over the Web. It's a matter of
working in social cues that are otherwise missing online, says
Indiana University psychology professor Curtis Bonk, PhD, a
teacher and prolific researcher on students' interaction on
the Web.
His advice to professors based on his research: Have
students introduce themselves, find common interests,
consciously build on others' comments and play out roles--for
example, moderator, naysayer or optimist--that move discussion
forward.
"The more shared knowledge students have about each
other, the more sharing of social cues, the more motivated
they'll be to participate in online discussion," Bonk
says.
Forge social bonds
The first step toward a productive Web discussion is
"just to say who you are," says Bonk.
This semester, students in his online discussions were
asked to pick eight nouns to describe themselves--one student
chose "computer," "music" and "professor," another "geek,"
"scientist" and "walker."
Also helpful, says Bonk, is setting up casual places
for students to hang out and chat online--spots with inviting
names such as "coffee station" or "café latte."
These online icebreakers help students discover common
interests, say Bonk and others running Web discussions. For
example, Lawrence Sherman, PhD, an educational psychology
professor at Miami University in Ohio, finds that online
introductions spawn breakout discussions among subgroups of
students. Recently, three of his students--all full-time
teachers--started their own discussion thread after realizing
they shared an interest in working for equal education for
African-American children.
"Online, students have the space and time to explore
similar experiences," says Sherman. "They can't do that in a
graduate class that meets once a week."
Professors can either let subgroups of students start
discussions on their own, or they can assign them to groups
and require them to discuss various readings. Ron Owston, PhD,
a higher education professor and director of York University's
Center for the Study of Computers in Education in Toronto,
finds that smaller online groups focus better on discussion
topics than do large groups.
Add context to messages
Even when students stay on topic, though, Owston is
troubled by how little they interact and offer feedback. Bonk,
who's been studying how to prompt more online student
interaction, says students start providing more feedback when
they shift from waiting for instructor guidance to instead
guiding one another. To overcome lulls in online conversation,
students need to tie their comments to others' comments, much
as they do in face-to-face class discussions, he says.
Doing so gives their comments a sense of purpose and
placement in the larger discussion, says Donald Winiecki, EdD,
an assistant professor of instructional and performance
technology at Boise State University. In research he reports
in a chapter of the book, "Webtalk: Writing as conversation"
(Lawrence Erlbaum, in press), he identifies several ways
students can adapt techniques and practices from face-to-face
conversation to online talk:
*
Reconstructed turn-taking. Students "snip" lines from others'
messages, paste them into a new message and respond to them in
turn.
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Repair. Students correct, clarify or reorient comments made by
other students by saying, for example, "I believe student X
meant..." or "Building on student X's earlier comment...."
They can also repair comments they themselves have
made.
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Formulations. Students summarize and assess where the
conversation is headed based on previous messages--for
example, someone might say, "The tone of recent postings has
changed, signifying a shift in the class's thinking...."
Sometimes students suggest new directions or topic shifts.
Some professors give students extra grade points for
using such techniques. In fact, students in professor Richard
Hall's psychology classes at the University of
MissouriRolla lose points if they don't foster "positive
interdependence." In a recent online discussion in Hall's
undergraduate educational psychology class, for example, Hall
required students to critique one another's proposed lesson
plans for grade school classes. Students pointed out what they
liked about others' proposals, and also what they'd suggest
changing, as shown in the following exchange:
Student A: "I will be doing my lesson on phobias...a
short lecture followed by group discussion...."
Student B: "'A,' I like the lesson plan that you
have...I would just be careful not to go into too much detail
as it might confuse or bore some students."
Student A: "Thanks 'B,' I plan on limiting the
discussion to a certain number of phobias...."
Bonk also suggests that students identify the type of
message being posted. Messages tagged "quibble," "addendum,"
"joke," "opinion," "evidence" or "question" tend to spark
reaction from other participants because they know how to
interpret the message, and therefore how to respond, he says.
Students can also add visual cues to their messages, such as a
cannon firing to indicate dissent, or a thumbs-up to express
agreement.
Assign roles
Yet another way to stir lively online discussion is
role-playing, says Bonk. To do this, online discussion
participants sign up to take the part of, say, eternal
optimist, pessimist, devil's advocate, trouble-shooter or
discussion moderator. When taking on roles, students feel
freer to express themselves, disagree with one another and
debate, says Bonk.
"Students tend to be too nice to each other on the Web,
and role-playing gives them license to be critical," he says.
"Humorous quips, or sometimes even some mild flaming, add
intrigue to discussion."
But he notes that in such cases, the discussion
moderator or coach must ensure that conflict is
thought-provoking and issue-oriented, not personal.
Similarly, students in Bonk's classes take turns
starting and "wrapping" discussions on different topics. When
participants' enthusiasm and insight wane, the student ends
the discussion. Bonk also notes that the next generation of
Web discussion tools will begin to "add an emotional
side"--allowing users to post symbols for a wink, frown or
smile, or to choose from a variety of message tags.
This technology is headed in the right direction, he
says, "because anything you can do to foster peer
responsiveness will make for a better, livelier online
discussion."
To visit the online discussion from Richard Hall's
educational psychology class, go to www.umr.edu/~rhall/discus/board.html.
To visit the discussion from Lawrence Sherman's class go to miavx1.muohio.edu/~shermalw/cgi/wwwboard/
wwwboard.htmlx.
To access discussions from Curtis Bonk's classes go to php.indiana.edu/~cjbonk/.
Further
reading
*
Bonk, C.J. & Cummings, J.A. (1998). A dozen
recommendations for placing the student at the center of
Web-based instruction. Educational Media International, 35(2),
82-89.
*
Bonk, C.J. & Dennen, V.P. (1999). Teaching on the Web:
With a little help from my pedagogical friends. Journal of
Computing in Higher Education, 11(1), 3-28.
*
Hara, N., Bonk, C.J. & Angeli, C. (2000). Content analyses
of online discussion in an applied educational psychology
course. Instructional Science, 28(2), 115-152. |
