There are lots of good reasons to use
online forums as a key part of our teaching:
- They can help students to develop higher level discussion skills
- They are a good way of challenging students to think more deeply
- They give students a chance to consider their opinions carefully rather than responding instantly - which can lead to a higher quality discussion than is sometimes the case in lessons
- They can give a voice to students who are too shy to contribute in class
- They can be a way of connecting students with similar interests across classes or even years
- They offer a ‘low-risk’ opportunity for students to practise their writing - and then to re-draft their thoughts as the discussion progresses
- They ‘capture’ a discussion so pupils can return to see it again at a later date. It’s hard to preserve a classroom discussion in the same way.
But they can be ineffective...dispiritingly so
We sometimes act as if we only need to set up a forum for vibrant, witty, incisive discussion to flow freely from our pupils’ keyboards. It doesn’t work like that - as I’ve found many times in the past.
There are two main problems: