Week's Summary
This week along with our continued work on
the course outline assignment, we learned about collaboration. Collaboration is
a great way to get the students involved and working together. We also learned
about the importance of discussion boards. The problem with current discussion
boards is that they are boring, require minimal interaction, and have timing
problems. There are five steps you should follow when creating your discussion
boards for the course outline assignment. Step 1 is you need to know the
purpose of the discussion board you are creating. Discussion boards are made to
create interaction between students. The question you have to ask yourself as
the instructor is "How do you want them to interact?” There are several
different types of discussion boards including: reflection, debate, and
analysis. The second step is the literacy element. Meaning where are the
students getting their information from to post about. This can include their
textbooks, literacy sources, and non-literacy sources. All are beneficial to
the students. Step 3 is the experiential element. Which involves opinionated
discussions, make the discussions relevant, and adults prefer them. Step 4 is
when the instructor determines the type of question they are asking the
students to discuss; either being reflective or one that requires more
evidence. The final step 5 is when the instructor constructs the discussion
question. The step should include: a purpose, question, example, instructions,
and due dates. If you follow these steps when creating your discussion boards
for your students they should turn out great! There are some best practices
instructors should follow as well. The best practices ask these questions:
"How many discussions should I have in my course?” "Should I interact
inside my discussions?” and "How do I get students to take the discussion
seriously?” You should ask yourself these questions when creating your
discussion boards.
Item of Interest
I think discussion boards will be very valuable
in my course outline because the students can interact with each other. They
can ask questions and give feedback on how far they are coming with their
taping skills and knowledge of all the ligaments. As the instructor, I can read
the discussions and comment on their discussions. So not only are they working
with each other but also with me. I plan on having them post a video of them taping
another person’s ankle, wrist, finger, etc. periodically so I can see the
progress they have made/need to work on, and they can get immediate feedback
from me. Discussion boards will be very beneficial I believe.
Concern or Problem
One of my concerns with discussion boards was if the
students would actually participate with them. The only way to insure they
participate is to give the discussion boards some point value towards their
final grade. The idea of the discussion boards is for them to help each other
out, but I know students more than likely won't do anything that isn't
required.