Successful forum discussions

EMOD 027

Strike a balance between keeping them focused while maintaining the development of the online

community

set tasks and deadlines clearly

provide enough input such as

reading and case studies,

state topic – authentic,

meaningful and connected to

real-life;

provide communication

model, tone, style;

present well-structured

content materials

Sound pedagogy

Lucy , Zaiga, Gladys, Yelena, Fernando, Tina, Monica, Hana, Larissa, Natalya

encourage participation and group interactionrespect CPs’ individuality and support learner autonomy;

give participants positive reinforcement;

give credit to CPs’ contributions;

establish rapport with CPs

Safe and supportive learning environment

Lucy, John, Milada, Gladys, Andreza, Yelena, Fernando, Tina, Monica, Larissa, Kate, Natalya

encourage CPs to use their problem-solving abilities,

engage them in critical and creative

thinking,

motivate them to take control of their

learning and be able to reflect what they have learned.

adopt a consultant role

Manage interactions for CPs to want to interact with each other;

promote cooperative

learning

Learning to learn

Milada, John, Gladys, Larissa, Yelena

Learner centredness

be aware of cultural and educational

backgrounds in order to respond to needs

personalise language and make lessons

contextually relevant.

find out your CPs’ interests and structure discussions round them

Prior knowledgeactivate your

CPs’ prior knowledge of

forum discussions,

topicrelate discussion threads to

CP’s past and present

experiences

value CPs’ past

experiences

The course participant

John, David, Tina, KateMilada, Gladys, Andreza

Bring the forum threads together

provide support, directions and guidelines to avoid

getting off the point

enable participation in new ways

build a stronger feeling of belonging to an online

community

Weave posts

Summarise forum

discussion

Milada and Andreza

to extend, emphasise and/or direct discussion by integrating contribution snippets into a posting from the moderator – John, Andreza, Natalya, Kate

to fill in information gaps – John, Gladys, Natalya

to emphasize and extend a point from a CP's message - Andreza

to highlight key issues to encourage a few more contributions before summarizing – Monica, Andreza, Larissa, Zaiga

to agree or disagree with reasons to refocus the discussion – Andreza, Gladys

Weaving posts...

it involves summarizing (condensing information and

focusing on the most important statements), and it

also requires the use of critical thinking and

establishing links between different discussion contexts – Yelena, Gladys, Milada, Hana

to add a sense of direction while discussions are in

progress – Fernando, Zaiga

to select and add information – Monica, Milada, Kate

to empathise and extend a point raised by the CPs -

Monica

to introduce new material or a new dimension to the

discussion. Monica, Milada, Zaiga, Hana

bring themes together by making connections – Gladys

to stimulate further thinking - Hana

to focus on condensing information, refocusing, winding up an activity (or e-tivity) or acting as a bookmark ‘footprint’ of a completed discussion or reviving the discussion – John, Andreza, Monica, Larissa, Milada,

Natalya, Kate, Hana

to signpost the ending of discussions, changes of direction or seems to be dying out – John, Andreza,

Fernando, Monica, Tina, Gladys, Milada, Zaiga, Natalya

to reinforce the learner experience and build an online community – John, Fernando, Yelena

to reinforce new information and knowledge and review all the information presented – Andreza, Tina

Summarizing forum discussions …

to review and to recapitulate in order

to acknowledge ideas and contributions

• Monica, Tina, Gladys

to simplify material for easy

understanding

• Tina

identify main points

• Gladys, Larissa

To intervene or not to intervene… that is the

question!

unreadable postings due to (e.g.) copying

and pasting from Word, or

excessively large images

help if necessary (e.g. show ways to cut out MS Word

code), but provide enough guidance and support for

course participants to be able to manage this

themselves in the future

Technical role

Correct inaccurat

e informati

on

Contact the person and ask them where

they got the information from, or

suggest a way to compare the

information you believe to be correct with what they have suggested is correct.

May need to be done privately, depending

on the circumstances.

This could actually provide an excellent learning opportunity

for the group/individual

Pedagogic role

Editing a post to help the

other participants

on the course grasp

Could the participant be

asked to paraphrase/elaborate/ make clear

what s(he) intended to say?

Contact them via private message

rather than ‘announcing’ this

on the forum?

Managerial role

Flaming, abuse

this can be an opportunity to turn a

negative situation into a positive one

contact the person directly and get them to consider why their

posting may have been offensive

encourage them to consider if there is

possibly a misunderstanding at

the root of the problem

allow time for the person to ‘turn around’ and ‘make peace’, but try to recognise when

immediate action needs to be taken (extremely abusive

messages) or when a situation is simply

irresolvable.

Social role

THANK YOU!