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Pedagogical
role in facilitating online discussion
Students need to posses a wide range of personal traits in order to succeed in an online learning course program. For learners who are highly motivated and well organized, distance learning is both a challenge and advantage. As the teacher, you are expected to help students develop higher-order thinking skills to your course and meet some basic needs in order to have a successful online teaching experience. The beginning process of online teaching is to be kept the same as the traditional one (setting course goals, objectives, required tasks, evaluation method, grading, etc). The next necessary steps are presenting the course syllabus. Based on her extensive experience as an online learner, Lehmann (2004) recommends that an online syllabus should be particularly clear and detailed. It should contain a full description of what is expected of students. An essential element to creating an effective online course is providing consistent feedback throughout the course. A lack of immediate feedback may be frustrating for online students. Feedback includes replying personal messages, responses to academic questions, commenting on discussion threads, grading, returning assignments, etc. Youngblood, Trede, and Di Dorpo (2001) conducted a study to identify the factors that support learning. Students’ responses indicated that they believed the following are the six most important tasks teachers should perform to help students have a successful online learning experience: *Clarify grading of the online part *Clarify expectations *Use questions for discussions *Monitor participation *Build on others’ comments *Move discussion forward Timely probing questions are an effective technique that contributes to the online teaching efficacy. Grabe (2004) points out that questions are one way to scaffold thinking behavior. They can be used online just as well as in face-to-face settings. A good questioning technique also helps prevent students from cheating. With regards to this pedagogical issue, Lehmann (2004) points out that teachers should carefully design assignments and discussion questions in order to bring authentic and original student contributions into the class. A well-designed assignment that calls for an individualized response will cut down on cheating (p. 68). |