Additional Details about the Student-Led Discussions

I expect you to log-on a minimum of 3-4 times each week and to contribute to the discussions each time you log-on; you should participate not only in the discussion thread you are leading, but also in several additional discussion threads.

Do a good job of maintaining quality in the discussions you lead.  Lead by example!  If other students are not participating in your discussion threads, find out why and do something about it.  It is probable that if you are an active participant in the discussions lead by other students, they will actively participate in yours.

Note: Submissions to the weekly discussion forums AFTER the due date are welcome, but they will not be included in the evaluation of your course activities.

The Quality of Discussion Questions

The questions you ask in the student-led discussions should be thoughtfully developed and carefully worded.  These questions should address issues and/or concepts from the reading that you find particularly important.  I will use the following criteria to evaluate your questions:

• Relevance - Your question must be relevant to the material in the research paper(s) that week.
• Importance - Your question must address a significant issue in the paper(s).
• Thought-provoking - Your question must require high-level thought, not a simple "look-up" in the paper(s), and not a question that can be answered "yes" or "no".
• Originality - You must not ask a question that is essentially the same as a question posed by another student.
• Timely - Your question must be posted early in the week (no later than Wednesday evening) so that the other students will have an opportunity to respond and you will have time to facilitate a good discussion.

The student-led discussions are the major learning activities in this course.  I will evaluate your participation carefully.  You must demonstrate knowledge of the material - not just your opinions.  Each contribution you make to any of the discussion threads should add something of value to the discussion.

The quality of your discussion thread can be influenced by the feedback you give to the students who post to it.  Three things determine the quality of a discussion thread:

• The quality of the initial discussion question you ask.  I have given some specific guidelines above. The better your question is, the higher it will be rated. Note: If you do not submit your question by Wednesday evening, it will be rated lower, no matter how good it is.
• The quality of the response posts. Some students will make thoughtful and informative posts to your discussion, and some will give minimal responses. I grade the quality of their posts, and that grade influences their grades in the course. However, you should provide feedback to students, too. If a student posts a high-quality response, you should tell them. And, if a student posts a low quality response, you should tell them.
• The depth of the discussion thread.  Discussion "depth" is determined by how many indents there are. If you ask a question, and a student answers, that is a "level 1" discussion.  If you reply to the student - now it's a "level 2" discussion.  If the student gets back to you - now it's "level 3".  If another student joins in and responds to the student's last post - now it's "level 4".  The more indents - the "deeper" the discussion thread.  Of course, if the posts are low quality, depth is meaningless.

What is a low quality post?  A low quality does not teach us anything, or contribute anything positive or substantial to the discussion.  Examples of low quality responses:

• any response that is biased, prejudicial, off topic, or is unsubstantiated
• any response that is carelessly typed, poorly thought-out, grammatically incorrect or confusing
• any response that is disrespectful of another student or any other person, etc.

Social Presence, Cognitive Presence, and Teaching Presence

You should strive to make postings that demonstrate social presence, cognitive presence, and/or teaching presence [based on Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2001) - see reference below].

Social presence is the ability of participants in an online course to project their personal characteristics into the online community of learning - to present themselves as "real people."  There are at least three forms of social presence:

• Affective - The expression of emotion, feelings, and mood
• Interactive - Evidence that you are reading, attending, understanding, thinking about other's responses
• Cohesive - Responses that build and sustain a sense of 'belongingness', group commitment, or common goals and objectives

Cognitive presence is the extent to which students are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained discourse (discussion) in a community of inquiry.  Cognitive presence can be demonstrated by introducing factual, conceptual, and theoretical knowledge into the discussion.  The value of such a response will depend upon the source, clarity, accuracy and comprehensiveness of the knowledge.

Teaching presence is the facilitation and direction of cognitive and social process for the realization of personally-meaningful and educationally-worthwhile learning outcomes.  There are two major ways students can add teaching presence to a discussion:

A. By facilitating the discussion:

• Identifying areas of agreement and disagreement
• Seeking to reach consensus / understanding
• Encouraging, acknowledging and reinforcing student contributions
• Setting a climate for learning
• Drawing in participants / prompting discussion
• Assessing the efficacy of the process


B. By direct instruction
 

• Presenting content and questions
• Focusing the discussion
• Summarizing the discussion
• Confirming understanding
• Diagnosing misperceptions
• Injecting knowledge from diverse sources
• Responding to technical concerns

For each of the weekly discussions, I will evaluate the quality of your responses on a ten (10) point scale.  You will be able to see your scores, but you will not be able to see the scores awarded to other discussion participants - nor can they see your scores.