Jul 01 2009
Discussions and the Instructor
The Three Principles of Effective Online Pedagogy was a great eye-opener for me. Not having a teaching background, it helped steer me in a direction. This is the first course that I have taken, that we have had to change the subject of the discussion posts. I think this is an excellent idea. It makes a student think and it is a lot easier to find a post. Reading through 20 or so posts a week can get confusing and at times overwhelming. I can’t tell you how many times in my other classes that I have started to read something and had to stop in my tracks. Trying to go back and find the post was a nightmare. Now, I can easily recall a previous discussion message. It is much easier to look at the title of something rather than click inside each discussion thread/post to find what you were looking for or to pick up where you left off. I love the idea that Pelz shares with instructors about spending 30-45 minutes a day reading their students discussion posts (Pelz, 2004). By doing this on a daily basis, it makes reading discussion posts manageable.
One area I am not too sure of is having students grade their own work or others. I am not sure how effective this is. I tend to be hard on myself, plus I don’t want my classmates/instructor to think that I am always giving myself high grades, so I tend to grade lower. I also have a hard time grading others as I always feel bad. Unfortunately, I always feel bad in a situation where I have to rate/critique others. Don’t get me wrong, I am not afraid to speak my mind sometimes. When I am anonymous, I tend to maybe critique a little more, but I still have that guilt feeling. I guess it is just my personality.
The other day I decided to “Google” Managing Discussion Posts for Instructors and I found a great article. The article is called Generating and Facilitating Engaging and Effective Online Discussions. I found the tips to be quite helpful. Some of the tips are the same that we read in different articles, but there were a few new things. I think I may include the questions that are under Words of Wisdom.
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