I decided early this year that I have a responsibility to improve the quality of online discussions. As a teacher, I often feel responsible to improve the world I live in. Knowing each year, that I will spend so many hours every day with so many impressionable, mold-able citizens of the future- can sometimes feel like a lot of pressure. I know my time working on digital citizenship is well spent though, because my students have digital footprints that are growing faster than they are!
Teaching students to have respectful, productive academic discussions online follows the same construct as teaching anything else. Students need to be taught explicitly. Students need clear, timely feedback. Students need to play an active role in creating/ designing the expectations. Students need to be exposed to and evaluate samples of the work they are being asked to create.
My students used Edmodo a great deal this year to have online discussions. Sometimes we discussed a current event, other times a shared novel. One reason I liked using Edmodo was that I had the ability to give students feedback on their posts. I also liked that I could create small discussion groups. Here is a snapshot of a reading group discussion.
I found this threaded discussion rubric online and love it! It came from Educational Origami, a blog and wiki dedicated to 21st Century Teaching & Learning. You’ll want to bookmark their page!
Based on this rubric, threaded discussion posts should:
- Refer to posts and thread
- Enhance the discussion
- Be clear and concise
- Add own opinion based on thread
- Develop an argument (supportive or opposed)
- Develop suitable questions
- Critique other posts
- Answer questions and defends stance or position
If I could go back in time, I’d have this list in mind as my goal, as I elicited student ideas about what threaded discussions should look like. We revised and narrowed our expectations as a group this year, and ended up with a similar list, but starting with the end in mind always helps!
Do you have any advice for teachers who plan to dive into online discussions this year? Have a rubric to share?
What do you think?