Redirecting discussions – keeping the topic fresh and engaging

Sorry I’m a bit slow on my posting lately. The past couple of weeks have been crazy busy with grading and business-travel and other things conspiring to use up all my free time. Anyway, here we go with part two of my three-part post on discussions.

When I first started teaching online, I kept getting “dinged” by Quality Assurance for not appropriately “redirecting” my discussions. “Redirecting”? I mean, I was participating and making comments and such, but it wasn’t immediately clear to me what that word meant. With some help from my mentor, it finally clicked for me.

Even if you choose the most exciting and engaging topic possible, as you’ve probably realized in your own classes, the discussion will usually run out of steam in a fairly short period of time; a few days or a week. Most of my discussion topics are set to run for at least two weeks, so this can be a problem. Another problem is that the earliest posters will usually get all the “juice” out of the subject and then everything kind of starts to lag. What do you do then? Trying to flog the original prompt doesn’t work very well (I know from experience), as it usually just generates insincere posts that mostly fill up space. Here are a few things that seem to work pretty well, and if you have any other tricks or techniques that you employ, please share them:

1) Stay involved in the discussion on a daily basis. I know we aren’t required to post daily, but at least read daily and maintain contact with the ebb and flow of ideas. This will offer you your best opportunity to see threads that can be tapped into for fresh directions or ideas, which is the next point.

2) Identify “juicy” posts and use them to push the discussion in a new direction. You know, the posts that students obviously thought about a little more than some of their peers, which offer some fresh ideas that you can work with? For example, in a discussion about uncertainty, precision and accuracy in my chemistry course, one student had this as part of one of her posts: “In working with the state crime lab, I was able to observe the impact of uncertainty in the drug/chemical department, in the fact that something must be tested several times to quantify amounts or even to determine the presence of a substance. If we were to test something inaccurately... it could mean a whole misrepresentation on an outcome of a case.”

State crime lab?! Cool! That led to a side discussion about forensic science that was pretty interesting.

In a discussion about energy use, one of my students asked a question about something he was thinking about purchasing. It was a fuel efficiency product for his car called “water4gas”, and purported to improve his fuel efficiency by a ridiculous amount. This was an opportunity to discuss the importance of really understanding the laws of thermodynamics and their implications in our daily lives and (hopefully) he was saved the expense of buying into this scam.

3) Ask them to think more deeply about the original topic, or about a related idea. After most of the important ideas related to the original discussion prompt have been tossed about, sometimes there’s no obvious direction to take the discussion. That may call for what is essentially a new discussion prompt. For example, one time my class was discussing what manufacturers might mean by advertising their products as “chemical free”. Within a few days, we had pretty much wrung this out by covering the ideas that all products are made up of chemicals and if something were truly “chemical free” it wouldn’t exist and probably the manufacturers were trying to portray their product as benign or harmless. OK, so where do we go from there? Well, I happened to see a news story about how some people were trying to get bis-phenol A (BPA that’s found in many plastic products) classified as a “toxic chemical”. So, I saw this as an opportunity to bring up the related question: “What do you think they mean by "toxic chemical"? What chemicals do you think of when you think about non-toxic chemicals? How are toxic and non-toxic chemicals differentiated?” This started a new line of comments and ideas that got the conversation going again.

As fun and interesting as discussions can be, however, you’ll always have students who won’t want to participate for various reasons. Next time, I’ll share some of my observations about the usefulness of anonymous discussions, which can be an avenue to help students get more out of your course.

Increasing sincere participation (by your students) in discussions

Of course, you’re going to sincerely participate in your online discussions, right? Actually, t hat’s my first bit of advice. To generate honest and open discussions with your students, you need to be honest and open yourself. You’ve got to really participate in the discussion with them, not just stand on the side and make sagacious comments now and then. It’s like the old adage about leadership: don’t ask them to do anything that you’re not willing to do yourself.

In addition, I have three suggestions to make that I have found increases student participation and helps in generating interesting and sometimes passionate discussions:

a. Keep the topics fresh and current. I’m not saying you shouldn’t re-use discussion topics – I do that myself. But keep tabs on them and spruce them up if they start to get a bit dusty. I often scour newspaper stories and science blog sites in search of topics that I can use in my courses. Speaking of newspapers, my doctoral advisor tells a story about a chemistry professor back in his native England. The professor had been teaching for many decades, and had a stack of extremely yellowed pages that he lectured from. One semester, a young man sat in the front row and quite openly read the London Times each day in class. After several days of this, the professor hurled an eraser at the student, knocking the paper from his hands. “Young man! I notice you are not taking any notes,” roared the old man. “That’s quite alright, Sir,” replied the student, “I have a copy of my father’s notes.”

b. Choose topics that your students can connect with. This is related to the first item, but is not identical. One of the most important factors in engaging students is providing them with authentic scenarios and problems to consider. Of course, because they want the points, they will feign interest in almost anything you provide them with. However, they will be much more engaged if you choose topics that are inherently of interest to them. In chemistry, for example, topics that involve explosions, energy use and conservatin, material transformations and the like tend to interest students very much. I’m sure you know topics within your subject that tend to appeal to students as well.

c. Invite them to share their opinions. If the subject is interesting and engaging (and often if it isn’t), students will have an opinion about it. Don’t waste the opportunity to get them to invest themselves personally in the topic. In addition to the dimensions of the discussion that relate to the subject being studied, ask them to share their opinion in some way. You can do this as part of your discussion prompt, or in the course of the discussion itself. Often, the sharing of personal opinions will open up an emotional channel in the discussion that enlivens it and draws more students into the stream. Of course, you have to watch carefully and make sure everyone remains civil, but that’s a much better alternative to trying to drag students into the conversation.

My next post will be on the subject of redirecting discussion – what to do when the conversation lags.

This is the first in a series of 4 posts regarding discussions in an online course. These are only my opinions, but I’ve developed them over the course of 12 semesters of online teaching. However, I welcome your thoughts about my posts – do you agree or disagree? What have your experiences been?

The topics I’ll post about are:

• The importance of discussions in online courses
• Increasing sincere participation (by your students) in discussions
• Redirecting discussions – keeping the topic fresh and engaging
• Why use anonymous discussions?

In my opinion, there are two major purposes for using discussions in an online course: connection and transference.

Connection

In the online environment, one of the most noticeable deficiencies is the sense of community that you can get in a traditional classroom. The lack of verbal and visible feedback from your students/classmates can lead to a sense of isolation. Discussions are one way to help alleviate this and help students connect with you and with each other. I’ve found that I learn more about my students from how they participate in discussions than from any other source of input, including email or other direct forms of communication. Of course, this requires an environment that encourages sincere and open participation by the students, which I’ll discuss in my next post.

Transference

The second important consideration, in my opinion, is that engaging students in discussions gives you an opportunity to assist your students in transferring what they are learning in the course to other contexts. Transference of knowledge from one context to another is one of the “holy grails” of education. It does very little good for a student to learn the principles of chemistry or the history of the United States if they lack the ability to transfer the principles and lessons into the context of their life and experiences. Imagine, for example, how terrible it would have been if we hadn’t learned from the long history of Western intervention in the Middle East and applied those lessons to our foreign policy decisions! Oh, wait, that’s a bad example. Anyway, engaging students in discussions about related topics has been shown, at least in some areas of learning, to improve transfer of knowledge to other contexts.

Fostering Transfer of Knowledge in Education Settings. Proceedings of the 29th Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Using Online Nominal Group Technique to Implement Knowledge Transfer

Can you pass the Turing Test?

I recently found this online course introductory post on the internet. I have blanked out the instructor and course names to maintain anonymity. Read this and imagine being a student in this class.

WELCOME STUDENTS: I AM XXXXXXXXXXXX, YOUR ONLINE PROFESSOR. SHOULD YOU WISH TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ME, JUST CLICK ON MY BIO WHICH IS LOCATED IN THE CLASS SYLALLUS. THANKS FOR TAKING XXXXXXXXXXXXX ONLINE WITH ME DURING THIS SEMESTER. I AM HAPPY THAT YOU ELECTED TO STUDY WITH ME. THE SCHEDULE IS OUTLINED IN SYLLABUS ANS SCHEDULE--SO--READ IT. PLEASE PURCHASE AND SECURE ALL OF YOUR COURSE MATERIAL AND LETS GET STARTED. PLEASE ADHERE TO ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE DUE DATES--DO NOT FALL BEHIND...THERE WILL BE NO MAKE UP ASSIGNMENTS. PLEASE READ THROUGH THE CLASS SYLLABUS AND OTHER RELATED INFORMATIONAL MATERIAL AND EMAIL ME--AT ONCE--IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS OR CONCERNS.

What do you think? Was this produced by a human or a computer? How would you feel about approaching this instructor with a question or issue?

The Turing Test

In the 1950’s, the great mathematician and cryptologist, Alan Turing, proposed an interesting thought experiment, which you’ve all probably heard of at one time or another. He proposed that for a machine (in those days, a “computer” was an actual human who worked with an adding machine) to give the illusion of human thought, it would have to pass the following test:

- The machine would be placed in a room separate from a human interrogator.

- The interrogator would ask questions of the machine (not knowing whether it was a machine or a human) and another human would pass the questions to the machine.

- The machine’s responses would be passed back to the interrogator.

- The appropriateness and validity of the responses would be used to judge whether or not the machine was “human” in its cognitive ability.

In this day an age, this may seem to be a quaint idea. Computers have advanced significantly since Turing’s time, and they are becoming more and more capable in human/computer interactions. However, the thought I’d like you to consider is this: how do your students know you aren’t a machine? My online students never see or talk with me in person. Do they have enough information to know that I’m a human being? Here are some things to consider:

Humor:

When you’re posting to a discussion, or answering email, keep in mind that your students are probably very intimidated by you – they don’t know you personally and they can’t judge your mood and tone by the sound of your voice or your body language. Since they are predisposed to be intimidated, you need to try and swing their impression over toward respectful friendliness. I use a lot of smileys and light humor in my messages to try to keep the mood light.

Personality:

This is related to humor, but think carefully about how your word choices portray your personality to your class. I try to write colloquially, as I would talk with them if they were in a traditional classroom setting. The manner in which you word your introduction, discussion prompts, instructions, etc. will have a big impact on how your students perceive you. Above all, you should be consistent and sincere, because they will see through duplicity very quickly (just like kids always do :-).

Empathy:

We all will have students who develop issues and problems as they go through our courses. I have had students ask me for leniency because they:

- had a family member die

- are going through a divorce

- are extremely ill

- can’t get their lab kit delivered because they are in a foreign country

- are travelling out of the country on business

- were wounded in combat and airlifted out and couldn’t get to their lab kit (really!)

In these cases, and others, I have sometimes suspected the students of lying to gain an advantage, but I’ve decided that I would give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them the way I would want to be treated – with sincere empathy. I might also keep a closer eye on them and make sure they didn’t lose a grandmother each time a lab or exam was due, but I personally see no advantage to making their situation more difficult by demanding a note from their doctor or a death certificate.

There are other ways to affect this, of course, but these elements will go a long way toward convincing your students that you are, indeed, human.

I am not the King of Boomeria

I’ve been teaching college chemistry, online and offline, since 1995 and sometimes I even think that I’ve got a few things figured out. Then, I discover someone that makes me feel like I have so much to learn that I almost want to give up. Like this morning, for instance, when I stumbled across “The Boom”, King of Boomeria. What an awesome teacher this guy is! After reading about him in Mental Floss magazine, I went to his website and was even more humbled by all the great material he has, as well as the obvious affection he displays for his students. I’m not, and will never be, the King of Boomeria.

But, you know, that’s OK. We all have our own creative streaks and competencies and talents, even though we are often somewhat blind to them. In today’s online world of instantly available information, you can always find someone more creative and more competent and more talented than you are. Bear in mind, however, that those people were there all along – you just didn’t know about them! So, don’t let that stop you from being who you are and doing the best you can do. Even though discovering someone like Preston Q. Boomer may humble me, I am inspired by him as well. In fact, when I went to work at the USAF Academy today, a colleague and I (with whom I had shared "The Boom's" website) started a project to re-invigorate our department’s “Chemistry Magic Show” program. Keep sharing your ideas and insights and epiphanies with others. You never know when you might inspire others to stretch themselves and do something they may have only dreamed of before.