{"id":124,"date":"2017-05-10T09:54:28","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T00:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/?p=124"},"modified":"2017-05-10T09:54:28","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T00:24:28","slug":"the-structure-of-discussions-in-an-online-communication-course-what-do-students-find-most-effective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/2017\/05\/10\/the-structure-of-discussions-in-an-online-communication-course-what-do-students-find-most-effective\/","title":{"rendered":"The Structure of Discussions in an Online Communication Course: What Do Students Find Most Effective?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes the bane of our existence, discussion forums can be a black hole of student non-responsiveness or a glorious example of sharing and informed discussion!<\/p>\n<p>This study explored student perspectives about what was effective in structuring asynchronous discussions in an online organisational communication course. Although the sample size was small (n=27) results showed several factors were crucial to student success:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Structured and Relevant Discussion Prompts<\/strong> &#8211; Discussion prompts, authentic tasks and allowing use of relevant personal narrative to relate to tasks \/ theories were all helpful.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Small Group Placement<\/strong> &#8211; Around 7 \u2013 8 students was ideal, allowing for students to get to know each other and not be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of posts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Visible Postings<\/strong> &#8211; \u00a0Despite fears of ethical issues, allowing students to see other\u2019s posts encouraged a deeper understanding of the material.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Required Weekly Postings<\/strong> &#8211; Clear, consistent dates help routinize the task, including timeframes for posting vs replies. The timeframe allowed time to process and critically reflect upon the questions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Many of the findings offer support for the Community of Inquiry (COI) Model which incorporates social, teaching and cognitive presence as essential factors for discussion forum success.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Question: How do you consider your social, teaching and cognitive presence in discussion Forums? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>If they don\u2019t work as well as you would like, consider spending some time redesigning with some of the above strategies in mind.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Full article can be found:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ro.uow.edu.au\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1646&amp;context=jutlp\">The Structure of Discussions in an Online Communication Course: What Do Students Find Most Effective?<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 \u2502\u00a0 Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice (2017)<\/p>\n<p>By Laura Jacobi<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Synopsis by Cassandra Hood &#8211;\u00a0Lecturer in Higher Education &#8211; CILT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes the bane of our existence, discussion forums can be a black hole of student non-responsiveness or a glorious example of sharing and informed discussion! This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":335,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15,21,24,25],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-discussion-forums","tag-journal-article","tag-student-engagement","tag-teaching"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/cilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}