From: Gibbs,
Laura K.
Sent: Wednesday,
January 18, 2006 2:04 PM
Subject: RE: Chat vs.
discussion
I think these notes cover
pretty much how I use the Discussion Board; it is hugely important to me. you
can log on to any of my courses as "visitor" (password visitor) and see the
Discussion Board in action.
student-teacher
question-and-answer where the students ask me for help with areas of the course
and by helping them via the Discussion Board, other students can also benefit
from seeing these exchanges
student-student open
discussion: sometimes students will connect with each other about majors,
hobbies or other interests, big events in their lives, etc. and they can use the
discussion board to carry on those discussions amongst themselves - I usually
don't participate in these discussions
weekly class discussion:
each week I have the students do "starting assumptions" where they explore their
current awareness of the week's topic, and they also reply to each other. here's
a sample discussion assignment:
weekly writing assignments:
students do two more formal writing assignments each week which they post to the
Discussion Board and then they comment on each other's assignments. here's a
sample writing assignment:
weekly "last words": since
in my experience, students do not even read the replies that have been left for
them unless they get credit for doing that, I have an extra credit "famous last
words" assignment which is very popular; almost every student chooses to do this
assignment. they read the discussion thread that they started and provide
closing comments.
http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/assignments/lastwords.htm
project brainstorming: at
the beginning of the semester, I have the students review student projects from
past semesters and brainstorm about the project they will choose this semester.
here's a sample brainstorming assignment:
project peer review comments
area: each student has a semester-long project which consists of a website. each
week, students read and respond to each other's projects, and every student has
a Discussion Board topic area with their name on it,which is where comments for
that student are left all semester long. this is handy, because the student has
ALL the comments from the whole semester available to them in their topic folder
in the Discussion Board. here are the instructions for the peer comments
assignment:
orientation: because the
Discussion Board is so hugely important to me, I have an assignment during the
first week where they are given credit for learning how to use D2L to include
images and links in their posts (and throughout the semester, because it is such
a pain to include images, I give them extra credit for making the effort to do
so):
grading: the students record
their completion of the Discussion Board assignments by "Gradebook Declaration".
here is how I explain that process to them:
I want to continually
promote good Discussion Board habits, so these D2L Discussion Board tips pop up
at random in a widget I add to the courses explicitly for this
purpose: