Strategies for facilitating successful online discussion

This strategy is an important one to implement within your subject site. In face-to-face classes, you will communicate your expectations in terms of how, when and where students should contribute and communicate; but in the online environment, but you cannot assume that students will know how to contribute and communicate within your subject site. Conducting synchronous sessions over Zoom or Webex additionally require setting of expectations for participating; for example, whether you’d like students to use the ‘hand up’ functionality of the software.

Points to consider communicating to students in this strategy include:

• Being respectful of others
• Negotiating ‘ground rules’ and responsibilities
• No question is ‘dumb’
• Establishing clear expectations about participating.

You can address these points in an introductory forum post or video in your subject site than can then be referred to in asynchronous discussion activities such as in forum posts, or at the beginning of synchronous sessions.

The following is an example adapted from the Fostering Online Discussion (FOLD) website (archived) and demonstrates how an ‘introduce yourself’ discussion forum activity within a subject site might be used to establish certain expectations such as responding to each other and commenting in respectful and friendly ways:

The above example of an introductory activity in a discussion forum on a subject site gives a rationale for why students should participate, what they need to do, and the communicative strategies they need to use to behave in an appropriate way. It establishes what expectations and good manners are for a particular context. This is what building a learning community is all about: when people feel included then they will feel that they belong (i.e., that they can be themselves). Building a learning community is also about managing participation, especially when it comes to those participants who dominate conversations and those who hold back. You also need to be explicit about how the purpose of discussion is not to say everything, but to leave space for others to come in. This is presented by detailing specific strategies and providing students with models or examples.

Consider how you acknowledge a contribution in a face-to-face physical setting: it might include actions like nodding, mmm-ing, smiling, and giving a thumbs-up to indicate you are listening. In online learning environments, these actions can sometimes be difficult to replicate, particularly in the asynchronous space. The synchronous space also has its challenges, for example if students have their cameras off and say nothing!

In the asynchronous space, all participants (teaching staff and students) can still demonstrate that they are ‘listening’ (or more specifically ‘reading’).

Two particular acknowledgement strategies are:

1. Addressing people by name in discussion forum posts and replies, and
2. Acknowledging what people have said in replies to discussion forum posts, for example through complimenting, supporting, agreeing, or disagreeing with them in an appropriate way.

These expectations for utilising these acknowledgement strategies should be clear and emphasise that communication is a two-way process and that acknowledgements are important for making people feel like they are being heard.

In the synchronous space, the design of your Zoom or Webex session will influence how you might acknowledge participation from students; one benefit of the synchronous software is that if a participant is speaking, you will know their name from seeing it beneath their video feed, allowing you and students to acknowledge contributions in a personalised way.

The following student testimonial from the FOLD website demonstrates how acknowledgements motivate and build student confidence:

Managing participation encompasses two important aspects:

1. Using a rationale to enforce limits (i.e., word or time)

By specifying a word limit on discussion forum posts, students are encouraged to be concise. It also promotes the expectation that students do not need to write lengthy responses, nor read others' lengthy posts. This leaves room for others to respond and contribute.

A potential response to a lengthy post could be:

• “Your response should be no longer than ___ as the purpose is not to ‘tell it all’ but to leave space for each person to contribute …”

If the discussion activity is being held by video (e.g. asynchronously by posting recorded videos in a discussion forum, or synchronously via Webex or Zoom), specifying a time limit would be appropriate.

2. Managing students who dominate discussion or hold back.

There will always be a variety of engagement levels between students, and it is important to manage both ends of this engagement spectrum to allow all students the chance to respond and contribute.

Some potential responses to students dominating or holding back could be:

• “That’s great X – thank you for telling us about your experience at work. I’m really interested in hearing now from some of the others who we haven’t heard from much.”
• “How about you, X, what has been your experience in similar situations / what do you see as a solution / do you have another perspective to add?”

Creating reasons to attend and keep coming back to your subject site to engage is also an important aspect of facilitating successful online discussion.

Some reasons can be social; if the subject site is a positive and friendly space where students feel that they are welcome and where everyone is there to learn, then they are more likely to be present online.

Some reasons can be learning-related; discussion activities need to be relevant, have a learning purpose and be timely (i.e., meeting learning needs at the right time). This involves planning so that students can clearly understand the requirements for participation.

Design of discussion activities

Digging into the design of discussion activities a bit deeper, there are some important points to keep in mind as you design a discussion activity (note that these points can apply to both asynchronous and synchronous discussion activities):

• The discussion activity should develop skills and knowledge linked to your subject learning outcomes (i.e., constructive alignment)
• Consider the authenticity and relevance of the activity
• Keep the activity question/s open-ended to promote meaningful responses rather than yes/no answers
• Using measurable verbs from can be helpful here, e.g. Blooms' Taxonomy, explain, select, and apply, analyse, design, demonstrate, etc.
• Provide explicit instructions to students on participation expectations (e.g., for asynchronous discussions, students could be instructed to make one post and then reply to two other students’ posts in the discussion forum)
• Consider providing a best-practice example post (this point is more applicable to asynchronous discussions held in a discussion forum)
• Formulate your own plans for participation, e.g., what do you anticipate your own participation will be? How will you organise the discussion structure to suit your class? For asynchronous discussions held over a period of time in a discussion forum, what are your workload implications for monitoring the discussion?

To encourage meaningful reciprocity in interactions, we need to move beyond the social kind of talk (although social talk is important, where students have the chance to get to know each other within an online setting and feel that this is a safe space where they can engage and contribute). As Laurillard (2012) notes, “peer discussion must be an important mechanism for learning” (p. 141).

The intention is to monitor and steer the conversation (discourse) towards two outcomes:

• Building collective understanding; and
• Building new understandings.

Building collective understanding

Building collective understanding aims to get the students to ‘pool’ what they know. The aim is to create a space where diversity in opinions, knowledge, experiences are encouraged and valued, and where students collectively add to the ‘group knowledge’. By incorporating different perspectives, collective understandings are broadened, and individual understandings are solidified.

Strategies to build collective understanding include:

• Restating or paraphrasing something that someone else has said (or something you have previously said): say it differently, clarify it, or refine the idea to make it clearer.
• An example of the power of this strategy comes from this student quote:
  “some of the theory type things we were covering … I just couldn’t understand it, I really do need to have it clarified – I’m not getting it from the book! And then it happened! One girl put up something and I thought ‘it’s clicked!’ Just from reading what she put there, the way she answered the questions just made it really clear.”
• Extending ideas: add related information, include something extra (e.g., from your own experience)
• A potential post or response could be “I agree with your reaction to X and I think the issue is also to do with Y” or “You mentioned you used ABC – I tried that too, but also used it with XYZ”
• Presenting alternative(s): to broaden discussion, adding something different to consider
• A potential post or response could be “I agree with what you said … but another point of view might be …”

These strategies can be used by teachers as well as students.

Building new understandings

Building new understandings or skills is the ultimate outcome we are aiming for in using discussion. We want to promoting critical (but respectful) discussion of ideas, issues, processes, and moving discussion beyond uncritical, additive comments.

Strategies for building new understandings include:

• Presenting alternative(s): to broaden discussion, adding something different for students to consider
• Challenging an idea, but not the person who contributed it
• A potential post or response could be “Some have made the observation that ABC, but in my context this may not work because XYZ”
• Justifying a position to make your point clearer
• A potential post or response could be “I’m not sure I agree/disagree with this idea because …” or “What I’m trying to say is that based on my understanding of Z concept I don’t think it would work in my situation due to A & B”

These strategies can be used by teaching staff as well as students.