What Does it Mean to Get an N in Discussions?
Managing discussion is a complex skill. We strongly recommend the Managing Discussions Workshop if you have received an N (needs improvement) in discussions. To clarify potential problem areas the N in discussions has been further defined as N1 through N6.
- N1: The Instructor has little or no participation, is not visible or involved in the class discussion. Instructor does not communicate with or respond to most students.
- N2: Very little Instructor response. Instructor does not respond to the required minimum number of students.
- N3: Instructor does not facilitate T.D. The majority of instructor response contains only short complementary acknowledgements i.e. good job, keep up the good work etc. Instructor response does not use examples, follow-up questions, or an exchange of information.
- N4: Majority of TD discussion is student to student. Instructor responses are not timely (24-72 hrs), and/or are input after majority of discussion is complete.
- N5: TD is not included in a minimum of 50% of course units
- N6: TD remains locked although student schedule indicates prior date
N1 and N2 refer to the quantity of instructor responses. The CCCOnline standard is that faculty respond to a minimum of 75% of student posts. While some responses may be group responses, students do need to know that the faculty is reading and responding to their work.
N3 refers to the quality of the student engagement in the discussion. Managing discussions so that students are engaged and re-engaged in the subject is a critical teaching skill in the online environment. To this end it is discussed in more detail below.
N4 refers to the timeliness of faculty responses.
N5 refers to the CCCOnline requirement that discussions be included in most (more than 50%) units.
N6 is a housekeeping reference. Discussions must be unlocked for students to participate. J It is good practice to lock discussions after the time period for posting has ended. This allows students to return to the discussion and re-read posts, but does not allow them to continue to post in that area.
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Avoiding an N-3: Developing Course Discussions through Re-engagement Techniques
Re-engagement is a skill most faculty use almost automatically in classroom settings, as we strive to help our students deepen and extend their thinking in face-to-face discussions by asking probing questions and by calling on students to encourage participation. Similarly, we also need to engage and then re-engage distance-education students in stimulating and thought-provoking discussions online - discussions designed to move them toward higher-level thinking or toward thinking about the subject at hand in new ways. The online environment, however, makes this more difficult because we have no cues except our words to guide students in the directions we hope they will go - no tone-of-voice, no facial expressions, no gestures, etc. In fact, it's possible that our very intervention in discussions may cause them to cease (rather than continue and deepen) when students interpret our remarks as having signaled an end to the conversation. This effect of course is not what we want to convey, so how do we avoid it?
What follows are some how-to's for preventing such inadvertent ending of students' discussion remarks, and instead extending them - i.e., re-engaging students in a deepening conversation. As a side note, these techniques also help you avoid an N3 rating on your quality-assurance evaluation. An N3 rating on your QA means the evaluator didn't see enough re-engagement posts used in your discussions.
Why use re-engagement techniques?
Re-engagement as a questioning technique moves learners to further develop remarks they've made, or it invites others to add to the construction of knowledge. It can generate a higher level of thinking and dialogue, and can promote class synergy.
What's the opposite of Re-engagement?
Statements that close the discussion.
For example, a summary of the discussion that ends without telling students where to go next. Discussion summaries are wonderful tools for helping students organize material, but why not end with a further question or directions to the next discussion?
Negative statements to students can also be both good and bad. Sometimes the solution to a student's incorrect answer might be to ask the rest of the class why this answer is not correct. Tone becomes critical to generating more interaction, however. If students feel put down, they will not continue to respond.
Too many "good job" sorts of statements without the addition of further directional information - additional questions, deeper questions, etc. - can also close off a discussion prematurely.
What techniques can we use to re-engage learners in discussion and build a deeper level of knowledge?
Learners do want to know they are on the right track in a discussion. Yet, when the faculty says "that's great," one effect is that the contribution/possibility of further exploration ends at that point (Barker & Barker, n.d.).
Here are some examples:
Instructor post without re-engagement:
Joe and Sally, you're right on the money!
Instructor's post using Re-engagement:
Joe and Sally brought up two very solid points about X-class, what other points would you add?
OR
Joe, that is a good point. Now if you were to consider X also, what additional issues would you need to consider? (It's easy to use the word "but" after the compliment - try not to as that can be off-putting to students.)
OR
I'd like to invite you all to come up with some ways to implement Sally's solution to the problem.
ALSO
That's correct, Sally-class members, if you have solved the problem a different way, we'd love to see your solution.
Cotton (1998) recommends asking students to draw from lower-level information or infer from sources an answer to a higher-level question that the faculty asks. She also suggests "redirection and probing," drawing on the pertinent elements in the student posts. Holding back on effusive praise while using positive remarks can push the thinking level, interactions, and level of knowledge construction upward.
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Great Discussion Practices
Here are some "tried and true" suggestions for making your discussions more effective:
1) Answer each student introduction – make each person feel welcome and noticed by a remark written specifically to his or her introduction.
2) Faculty Presence online is important – presence and immediacy of response are important. We should all be in the courses at least three times a week and responding to at least 75% of all posts, and responding to new posts within 24-48 hours. It is okay not to be in courses on the weekends, though many students may be active on the weekend. Interacting Friday, then again Monday, is okay.
The point of presence is much more than the hours between responses. If you were a student, would you want to be in a course room posting in a thoughtful way, yet not get any reinforcement, nor a response from the faculty to you or the class for several days?
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Resources
Barker, C., & Barker, D. (n.d.) Managing online discussions. Retrieved June 4, 2004, from http://faculty.spokanefalls.edu/discussions/manage.htm#discussions
Cotton, K. (1998, May). Close-Up #5: Classroom questioning.
Retrieved June 4, 2004, from http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/3/cu5.html
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©2004 Colorado Community Colleges Online
