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Archive for the ‘Discussion Forum’ Category

Exploring Professional Discourse Using Data from Online Discussion Forums: Showcase of Three Methods

This report offers an overview of methods investigating educators’ professional discourse. The selected three methods are text-mining focused on content words, text-mining with function words, and social network analysis. The first method allows summarization of text data based on focal points in corpora. The second type of text-mining leverages predetermined categories of words to investigate […]

From Confounded Common Ground: Misunderstandings Between Tertiary Teachers and Students in Online Discussions

Drawing on findings from two studies, this article focuses on the expectations of students and teachers in higher education, when learning via asynchronous online discussions. In particular, this synthesis highlights a divergence of expectations. The first study investigated how students and teachers experienced asynchronous online discussion within initial teacher education at undergraduate level. The second […]

Using Debate in an Online Asynchronous Social Policy Course

This paper presents the use of a debate in an online asynchronous social policy course. Debate is frequently used as an instructional strategy in higher education, but little is known about the use of this tool in an online learning environment. Participants (N = 36) completed an online debate assignment and both qualitative (reflection papers) […]

Personalizing and Extending Deliberation in the Online Classroom: Future Horizons

Research indicates that when instructors interact with students online their academic engagement increases, yet there is little research on student peer interactions and its effectiveness in terms of academic engagement. This study evaluates peer deliberations on a collaborative website for students enrolled in an American politics course at two institutions. Significant evidence reveals that student […]

Should Britain Leave The Eu? An Exploration of Online Argument Through A Toulmin Perspective

The paper shows how a framework adapted from Toulmin (1958) was valuable in exploring the force of online argument in an educational setting. In past research of online discussions there has been a focus on interaction patterns at the expense of exploring questions of content. In seeking to address this imbalance, we used Toulmin’s key […]

Download Report: ENGAGEMENT AND DISCOURSE OF EDUCATORS THROUGH ONLINE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Professional learning community (PLC) is a promising strategy for effective professional development because it provides opportunities featuring collaboration, job-embedded contexts, reflection and feedback on practice, and sustained duration of learning. Yet, there are temporal and geographic barriers to designing and implementing a PLC, such as finding shared meeting time and connecting educators across different school/district […]

What if online students take on the responsibility: Students’ cognitive presence and peer facilitation techniques

The purpose of this study was to investigate: (a) the characteristics of online students’ cognitive presence in a peer-facilitated discussion environment, and (b) the peer facilitation techniques that enhance cognitive presence development. In this study, we examined 738 discussion messages. Analytic methods included both qualitative and quantitative content analysis. The findings revealed that although cognitive […]

Quiet Participation: Investigating non-posting activities in online learning

Despite the growth in online learning offerings in K-12 and higher education, limited research has been undertaken to better understand less visible online learning activities. Reading and rereading are not typically valued as important indicators of learning since number or frequency of entries, words or key phrases are usually visible and easily tracked. This paper […]

Maximizing Interactivity in Online Learning: Moving Beyond Discussion Boards

Emergent technologies and communication channels have evolved over time and now offer more connected interactivity between students, their peers, course content, and their instructor. Yet, many who teach in the online environment continue to utilize the traditional forms of communication (such as discussion boards and email). This article explores practical strategies for maximizing interactivity, shares […]

Synchronous and Asynchronous Discussions: Effects on Cooperation, Belonging, and Affect

Supporting productive peer-to-peer interaction is a central challenge in online courses. Although cooperative learning research provides robust evidence for the positive outcomes of face-to-face cooperative learning (Johnson & Johnson, 1989), online modes of cooperative learning have provided mixed results. This study examines the effects of synchronous versus asynchronous interaction on students’ sense of cooperation, belonging, […]

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