Play the Role of the Student!

This semester I tried a new discussion technique and it worked.

The Scenario.
My Physical Geology classes have 3 Unit 1 Discussions: Student Introductions, Plagiarism and the big 40 out of 50 points Main Research Discussion (Geologic Wonders) in which they must come up with 4 distinct ways that Geology affects their lives and then provide some good science and supporting references for each ‘wonder’.

The Student Introductions and Plagiarism topics presented no problems and everyone posted right away.
However, this was not the case with the 40 point Main Research Discussion about their “Geologic Wonders”.
After several days only a few students out of 3 classes had posted.
What was going on? What could be done to help students better understand the requirements so that the Main Unit Discussion would start moving along?

Possible solutions that came to mind:
1. Expand on the directions.
Expand by how much? Do we want directions for one discussion to be so long and involved that one has to scroll twice just to read all of them, not to mention that the students will cringe when they see them all? The directions were already concise and long enough to explain requirements.
2. Send Emails with more detail.
Emails are one possible way of handling the problem. However, students receive lots of Emails and sometimes Emails go ignored for awhile. Also, taking the solution to the Email location of the course would mean separating the solution from the problem which existed in the Discussion area. That did not seem like the best way to motivate students to post either.
3. Upload audio or video recordings.
Recording multimedia tools in which I explained the post directions in detail seemed like a viable option but I wanted something that could reach all students and not allow for excuses such as my audio or video is not working on my computer. An immediate solution was needed. There was no time to work on recording or video edits for a few days.

My Method of Choice:
4. Play the Role of the Student! (Role Modeling)
An idea came to me! What if I could show them exactly what was expected for that Main Research Discussion? What if I took the time to write a research discussion post for the topic just as if I were as student in the class? The idea intrigued me; I was excited to try it and so I began writing my own research post. My post would be well organized, embellished with images, scientifically factual and based on research from good supporting (and well cited) websites. I did not write from my own expertise and knowledge because the students would not have prior knowledge of the subject when they began writing and so I researched as if I were new to Geology.

When finished, I converted the Word document to an Adobe Acrobat .Pdf file, uploaded it to the Course Files and then linked it right below the Main Discussion directions with the following lead in:

“Are you stuck or confused? Here is a .Pdf document that will show you an example of what we are seeking for this Discussion topic. Please take a look.”

This lead in was followed by a Course Link to my discussion document.
For those of you who are reading this blog and who are interested in seeing the sample discussion, I have uploaded the document to my website. Here is the link: Instructor Sample Unit 1 40 point Discussion Post - Geological Wonders

As backups to this new method, I also sent the link for my new discussion post in an Email and posted it in News too.

The Result:
Within one day people began posting and the majority of posts were very well done, well organized, chock full of good science and supported with well cited references from the get-go.

Who knows? Perhaps they enjoyed seeing the Instructor write the same post they had to tackle.
Or, maybe all they needed way to see how to approach the research post.

Did this “Playing the Role of the Student” work with everyone in all 3 classes? Absolutely not!
Some students may not have opened the link to read the sample post. This is not unexpected since students vary in the ways that they learn best and in the course resources that they will choose to explore. Helping all of my students to understand directions and concepts requires reaching out to them in more than one way. Redundancy is essential, but that is a topic for a future blog.

And so the old adage, “Teach by example” became another effective discussion tool in my online classroom.

If you have used a similar or other effective approach then please tell us about it!

Thank you!
Lorrie