In her book, Teaching as a Design Science, Diana Laurillard makes the point very clearly:
There is a difference between discussion and learning through discussion. The latter does not just happen; it has to be deliberately scaffolded by the teacher.
It takes time. We need to understand that and we need to devote time to teaching the skills. Again, there’s no magic here. Experiment with the ideas below and find a method that works for you.
- Make sure you set the right tone. You want your forum to be friendly and supportive but you also want it to have a certain formality. It’s not a social media platform. We want it to help develop writing skills. So, probably no emojis!
- Encourage disagreement. But teach the difference between disputing an idea and disputing with a person.
- Think carefully about the size of your forum. Too many people and it can be intimidating. Too few and there isn’t enough activity to generate momentum.
- Be aware of dominant users...and lurkers. Of course, we want people to be excited, committed participants but it’s possible to ‘squash’ less confident members in an online forum, just as it is in a classroom. Be ready to have a ‘quiet word’ if necessary; in person not via the forum. Conversely, some people will be ‘lurkers’. They will read posts and may learn a lot from them without making a post or comment themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that - some people are timid at first - but be prepared to talk to them if it persists.
- Use students as moderators. Not to replace the teacher but it can work well to appoint a student who will lead a discussion and take on the role of promoting debate by asking timely questions. High level skills.
- Actively scaffold students’ contributions. Ask them to categorise their contribution and give it a tag. Maybe:
Question - about a definition, function or reason
Explanation - of a concept, a function, assistant, or a reason
Conjecture - about an assumption or a prediction
Comment - as a justification, or a commentary
Critique - as a complement, a correction, and alternative
Or, you could use Garrison’s problem solving stages:
- Identifying a problem
- Defining it more clearly
- Exploring the problem and possible solutions
- Evaluating the applicability of different solutions
- Integrating this understanding with existing knowledge
- Give students a list of phrases and vocabulary to use. Ideally, these will be linked to the categories listed above. Your list will probably develop over time - but do write a list as a starting point.
When I say ‘Forum’, I really mean Google+ Community.
This link explains how to set one up. (It’s very easy!)