eModeration for asynchronous & blended learning (Part 2): Sustaining meaningful interactions

Introduction

This is a series of posts on eModeration aimed at educators who wish to create discussion forums to maximise communication in their asynchronous or blended classes. With COVID-19 forcing schools and universities to move their classrooms online, forum discussions can extend engagement and learning beyond the live class. Edmodo, Moodle, Google Classroom, Blackboard, Schoology and even Facebook closed groups are just a few examples of platforms that can host our online learning communities and asynchronous discussions. 

The number one essential ingredient for creating and maintaining engagement and successful interactions is eModeration and this three-part article will look at how we can use it to our advantage.

Part 1 introduced you to the concept of eModeration, and suggested ways to establish quality forums.

Part 2 discusses how we can develop and sustain meaningful interactions by guiding the forum discussions and asking the right questions. 

Part 3 will, finally, discuss assessment. Should students’ contributions be graded and what implications may this have on their participation in forums?

Part 2 – Sustaining meaningful interactions 

Merely creating an online forum and asking students to engage in it does not guarantee students’ participation. In fact, teachers often struggle to get students to post regularly and meaningfully, so what is it that makes some forums better than others?

Ask the right questions 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Avoid dead-end questions that simply require students to regurgitate the input they received or that prompt them to answer in a particular way i.e. leading questions. Once an answer has been given to this type of question, there is often very little to add. A good question is both answerable and challenging and encourages students to reflect, analyse, interpret, synthesise or critique (Stanford University, 2019).

To this effect, choose questions that:

• are open-ended and can be answered in ways that are diverse and expansive e.g. “How would you explain…”.
• prompt students to reflect on the information received and make their own interpretations e.g. “What connection is there between…”.
• challenge students to use evidence to justify their arguments especially when discussing controversial issues e.g. “Can you support your views with evidence?”.

Give it a goal

Online discussions need a clear purpose tied to the course objectives, so it is important to be clear about your goals. Without a focus or direction discussions will be aimless, if they happen at all. This is important for all courses but perhaps even more so for online ones as students will be otherwise working in isolation without regular interaction with their coursemates (Salmon, 2000). What is your goal for setting up this forum? Do you want to encourage students to reflect on what they have learnt, express their opinion and critique when appropriate? Do you want them to clarify their understanding of key concepts already learned? Do you wish to enable them to learn from one another by sharing their knowledge and experiences? While all the above can co-exist as course learning objectives, giving your forum a clear goal, will make students feel that the discussion is directly helpful to their learning.

Teach commenting skills

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Students’ comments on what their peers have posted are necessary if we are to transform our forum from a static space to an interactive community. Teach them to make comments that are constructive, add to the discussion and complement the issues being raised previously (Bates and Poole, 2003). Advise them to link and refer to other students’ contributions so that the forum becomes a coherent entirety rather than a set of stand-alone posts. Finally, point out that responses such as “I agree with that” or “That’s a great idea” can hardly generate discussion and should be avoided (Bates and Poole, 2003) unless they can provide some justification or examples.

Be an active moderator

Active moderation does not involve active participation in discussions. In fact, taking a background role can allow students time to develop “their own thinking processes and collaborative learning” (Harasim et al, 1995 p. 174). Avoid commenting immediately after a student’s response as your stance (approving or critiquing a post) may interrupt their thinking process or influence their responses (Stanford, 2019). However, you need to monitor regularly and be ready to facilitate discussions if students go off-topic, express opinions without justification, or simply lack critical thinking. Use the following questions as appropriate:

• This is a good observation X (student’s name). Can you give us some examples to support your view?
• You make an interesting point here. Can you think of any ways this opinion can be challenged?
• What is your reasoning for this? Can you provide some evidence from the literature?

Size matters

Forums should be neither too small nor large. Not all students will actively participate – especially at the beginning of the course – so a small group is unlikely to generate meaningful discussions. Usually, a teacher-student ratio of 20-30 students is recommended but variations exist depending on students’ age, experience, and linguistic level. Larger groups should be broken up into smaller groups, each with its own moderator e.g. 40 students should be split into 2 groups of 20. If there are no other moderators to share the workload with, consider launching peer or assistant moderation (see below).

Peer or assistant moderators

While being both the tutor and moderator is usually the norm, some drawbacks may include a heavier workload for you, reticence for students and the risk to end up with teacher-centred discussions. An excellent way to avoid this is to bring in peer or assistant moderators. Peer moderators are students participating in the course, acting as moderators on a rota basis. To help them build up their confidence and skills, they should be given clear guidelines and be asked to work in pairs or small groups. Assistant moderators can be teaching assistants or other colleagues with background knowledge and in the course. 

In the next and final part of this series, we will look at whether we should make forum participation a part of student assessment. Some educators believe that students are more likely to be engaged if they know they will be assessed; others think that this ruins spontaneity and adds an extra layer of stress for the students to deal with. Check out the next post for some discussion on this.

References  

Bates, A. and Poole, G. (2003). Effective teaching with technology in higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.     

Harasim, L. (2012) Learning Theory and Online Technologies New York/London: Routledge.                    

Salmon, G. (2000) E-moderating London/New York: Routledge.

Stanford University (2019) Designing Effective Discussion Questions. Available at https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/resources/teaching/student-teacher-communication/designing-effective-discussion-questions

Please cite as: Mavridi, S. (2020). eModeration for asynchronous & blended learning (PART 2): Sustaining meaningful interactions. Digital Learning. Received from https://sophiamavridi.com/emoderation-part-2/

A version of this article first appeared in the IATEFL Learning Technologies Newsletter LT and has been adapted and published here with the permission of the LTSIG editor Graham Stanley.

Adapted from Mavridi, S. (2019). All in eModeration, Part 2. LT (2). IATEFL LTSIG Newsletter.