Online Teaching

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Online Teaching LearningUsing Discussion
Forums for Peer Collaboration
J. A. Gilles Doiron Instructional Designer Zayed
University
2
Introduction

• Traditional Course Tutorials
• Traditional Student Collaborative work

3
Agenda

• Communicating Online With a Common Purpose
• The research study
• Student Feedback
• Discussion Forum Postings (archived)
• Discussion

4
The research study

• National University of Singapore
• Faculty of ASS
• Dept. Psychology Social Work
• 3rd yr. undergraduate course - Health Psychology
• 166 students (86 female)
• 13 week semester
• 50 CA mark (participation 10, paper 25, paper
  critique 15)

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The research study

• Setting up the activity
• random assignment of students to groups, info
  meeting in the 1st week
• 166 students in groups of 9 or 8
• 9 Tutorial topics
• Weekly rotation of group leader
• Group leader to write paper on tutorial topic
• Group leader to rate contributions of team
  members
• Each student will review one paper written by
  another student

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The research study

• Data collected
• Student Demographics
• Index of Learning Styles (ILS) questionnaire
• Attitude surveys (Survey I in third week II in
  last week)
• Discussion forum transcripts
• Peer evaluation scores and comments
• End of semester interviews (17 students)
• Total CA marks

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Agenda

• Communicating Online With a Common Purpose
• The research study
• Student Feedback
• Discussion Forum Postings (archived)
• Discussion

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Student Feedback

• Attitude surveys
• High correlation between Survey I II questions
  
• No significant difference in means found
• Qualitative data from open ended questions
  categorized coded

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Student Feedback

• Attitude surveys - Results
• The research study Survey I results

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Agenda

• Communicating Online With a Common Purpose
• The research study
• Student Feedback
• Discussion Forum Postings (archived)
• Discussion

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Discussion Forum Postings

• Archived Forums
• Week 5 Topic Stress Group 17 (largest
  file)
• Week 5 Topic Stress Group 7 (smallest
  file)

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Discussion Forum Postings

• SOLO (Structure of the Observed Learning
  Outcomes)
• As students learn, the outcomes of their learning
  display similar stages of increasing structural
  complexity.
• Two main changes are
• quantitative, as the amount of detail in the
  student's responses increases
• qualitative, as that detail becomes integrated
  into a structural pattern.
• Quantitative stages occur first, then learning
  changes qualitatively.
• Biggs, J.B. and Collis, K.F. (1982) Evaluating
  the Quality of Learning the SOLO Taxonomy, New
  York Academic Press.

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Discussion Forum Postings

• Blooms Taxonomy or Classification of Learning
• knowledge and the development of intellectual
  skills

Indicative Skills
Create
Evaluate
Analyze
Apply
Understand
Remember
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Discussion Forum Postings

• The relationship between Blooms Classification
  of the Cognitive Domain and the SOLO Taxonomy

Generalise
Theorise
Create
Hypothesise
Reflect
Evaluate
Integrate
Apply
Relate
Analyze
Explain Causes
Analyse
Compare/Contrast
List
Apply
Classify
Combine
Enumerate
Describe
Understand
Do Simple Procedure
Identify
Remember
Memorise
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Agenda

• Communicating Online With a Common Purpose
• The research study
• Student Feedback
• Discussion Forum Postings (archived)
• Discussion

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Discussion

• The discussion forum as a collaborative workspace