Key points
Meaningful peer discussion is possible in an online course with well designed prompts and feedback.
Do not merely ask students to "Discuss" but provide focus questions and guidelines to respond.
Encourage participation by providing incentives.
Learner Experience Interaction is an activity to promote meaningful discussion and peer learning among students in an online course. It consists of a focus question, discussion threads and a Reflection Quiz. LxI can be implemented via a Discussion Forum in an online course.
LxI begins with a focus question to seed peer discussion. The goal of the focus question is to elicit diverse learner views and at the same time avoid scattered discussion, which is a common problem in online courses. It requires students to interact with their peers by viewing and responding to others’ posts.
Watch the LeD titled "What is an LxI" from 0:38 - 7:50 mins - Click Here.
The focus question and subsequent discussion is followed by a short graded activity, the Reflection Quiz, in which student answer specific questions related to their experience in the discussion. The Reflection Quiz closes the loop of the learning process. It can carry a small grade to incentivize students to participate in the discussion.
Choose a topic which is likely to elicit multiple viewpoints and generate rich discussion
Create a focus question clear instructions for students on how to respond and interact with peers
Create a few questions for Reflection Quiz which requires students to express what they learned from their peers and diverse viewpoints
Watch the LeD on 'Creating LxI with Reflection Quiz' from 1:03 - 7:21 mins - Click Here.
Use the LxI Constructor to plan and create your own LxIs. Link - https://lcm-model.org/constructors/
For examples of writing focus questions and evidence of LxI effectiveness, watch:
Below are links to some tools useful for facilitating meaningful discussion.
Learning Management Systems contain built-in discussion forums. The documentation above describes how to use a discussion forum in Moodle.
Padlet is an online collaboration tool where users can gather, share and modify ideas. The documentation above describes how to use a Padlet in various ways for an online discussion
Jamboard, a Google Drive solution, is a collaborative smart board to facilitate discussions and brainstorming of ideas. The documentation above provides tips on using Google Jamboard.
Another set of tools that could be use for an LxI are online chat based solutions. Slack's post + thread feature is especially helpful.
Here are a few of them.
The following table provides a choce of tools for creative LbD activities for synchronous as well as asynchronous modes of instruction. If your institution has moodle then its highly recomended to explore all the options it has.
More information
Learning experience interaction (LxI): Pedagogy for peer-connect in MOOCs. Banerjee G., Warriem J. , & Mishra S. In Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE 2018). Philippines: Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education, 2018.