Top News - Online insight: Challenges beat cheerleading - The Diigo Meta page

• 28 May 08
  

  J Rice

  Mirrors principles of a Harkness discussion in an online environment

  Harkness DiscussionTechniques

• 12 May 08
  

  Christy Tucker

  Network analysis in online discussions in two classes shows, not surprisingly, that asking probing questions and challenging posts results in more learner engagement than simple "cheerleading" posts like "Great job!"

  e-learning discussion networks education research teaching engagement

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  Troy Cherry

  A recent study on creating meaningful peer-to-peer discussion in online courses

  moodle elearning

  • To understand how these two discussions on the same topic developed differently, Lowes divided the interaction into three categories: (1) "cheerleading," or posting reinforcement, such as "Great job!," that added no new information; (2) adding new information; and (3) questioning or challenging.

  • "What we found," said Lowes, "was that the left-hand conversation had much more cheerleading, while the right-hand conversation had more new information added and questioning. This leads to the conclusion that cheerleading tends only to create more cheerleading, while questioning leads to more new information added. Basically, cheerleading doesn't move the conversation forward at all."

    
    
    
    

    
    
    

     

    
    
    
    
    

    
    
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  Lennie Symes

  Simply providing online discussion forums is not enough to keep students engaged in virtual courses, according to educators who are well-versed in online instruction: For real learning to occur in an online setting, virtual-school educators must establish

  online virtual for:jewel_lee27 for:joehauge for:keup43 for:jrising for:matt_wiebe

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