Why Should You Incorporate Online Discussions into your Course?

Much of the research conducted around online discussions has found that incorporating online discussions into a course is crucial to the learning process.

Discussions can help you:

Foster collaboration among your students
Assess incremental learning
Provide deeper engagement between your students and course content
Make advanced content more accessible
Create learning communities within your classroom
Conduct peer reviews and track feedback

From http://ctl.utexas.edu/teaching-resources/teach-your-course/facilitate-with-intention/

A Little Learning Science: Discussion's Importance for Learning

Discussion is crucial to learning for at least three reasons. First, research has shown that the more we elaborate upon something, the easier that knowledge is to retrieve and use (Svinicki, 2004). Second, the socio-emotional aspects of discussion are important, as emotion has powerful effects upon learning (Zull, 2002). Finally, discussion is fundamentally "critical" because it demands that one explore one’s own beliefs in order to articulate and contrast them to the beliefs of others. This exposure "forces the subject to go beyond his current state and strike out in new directions" (Piaget, 1985, p.10, cited in Palincsar, 1998, p. 350).

Palmer (1998) extended this last point by describing discussion's transformative effect upon knowledge which can make it as rich a learning experience for the teacher as it is for the student. He described this phenomenon by visually depicting how relationships to knowledge itself differ between "mythical objectivism" in which the "truth flows from the top down " and a "community of truth, as in real life, when there are no pristine objects of knowledge and no ultimate authorities" (pp. 99-101).

Instead of truth being an object at a top of a ladder, Palmer offered a definition of truth as "an eternal conversation about things that matter, conducted with passion and discipline " (p.104).

Additional Notes on Online Discussions

From http://jolt.merlot.org/vol7no3/baker_0911.htm

Online discussions can transform mere course chatter into a cyber forum of student-centered learning through meticulous planning, designing and orchestrating.

Discussions facilitate group construction of knowledge as well as individual assimilation and retention (De Wever, Van Keer, Schellens, & Valcke, 2010). A supplemental benefit is that group knowledge and examples are memorialized for student access and reflection asynchronously (Berge, 2000).

Online discussions reinforce the learning experience. They serve a critical role by providing student to student and student to instructor interaction (Xin & Feenberg, 2006). This social interaction among participants affects the learning process positively (Abedin, Daneshgur, & D’Ambra, 2010; Sadera, Robertson, Song, & Midon, 2009). Wrestling with how to express yourself to others promotes learning (Rourke & Anderson, 2002) while communication skills evolve as learners refine and clarify their ideas (Timm & Stead, 1996). Furthermore, students cannot overdo online discussions. There is no evidence that suggests discussion participation negatively influences learning (Wolff & Dosdall, 2010). -

Berge (1995) asserts there are four different roles that moderators and instructors play in facilitating computer mediated discussions: pedagogical, social, managerial, and technical. The roles conceptualize a theoretical framework for reviewing the different hats that instructors wear in orchestrating online discussions. Pedagogically, online instructors serve as a computer mediated facilitator of learning. Socially, teachers need to nurture a virtual discussion venue conducive to productive discourse. Managerially, the instructor identifies discussion topics, establishes a format, develops an assessment instrument, and orchestrates the process. Technically, the educator leads the way in introducing the enabling technology and trouble-shooting glitches until the class achieves satisfactory competency.