Best Practice Model Wiki - Online Discussions
This wiki allows e-learning practitioners to share their experience and expertise on using online discussions and relate it to the Best Practice Model created by Gilly Salmon (see http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/5stage.shtml). This model is available in the Best Practice Models for E-learning Community, together with case studies, tutorials and a discussion forum (see http://crusldi1.staffs.ac.uk/bestpracticemodels/
To use this page:
1. email Helen Walmsley for the password to edit this page.
2. Add a short description of any activities you have used in any of the stages of the model
3. Add your name as a contributor at the bottom of the page.
4. Thanks!
Salmon's Stage |
Tutor's suggested activities |
Access and Motivation |
- Students are asked to send me a short e-mail which includes their latest CV, and why they have chosen to study their particular degree.
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Students ask the teacher questions
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Use forums to organise project groups - post meeting minutes, tasks, and work in progress. Supervising teachers can monitor and intervene.
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use "sandbox" forums to give participants a practice space for learning about the forum tools, and to become familiar with the ubiquitous Moodle editing toolbar
|
Online Socialisation |
- I try to put students with similar career plans into the same sub-groups e.g. many students want careers in finance, or in marketing. I ask them to find the names and websites of major firms both locally and nationally, who operate in their intended careers.
- Holding conversations in the language you are studying, perhaps linking up with others learning the same language elsewhere and involve people for whom it is a native tongue
- use forums for social interactions, to strengthen the group dynamic and prevent isolation for distance participants
- For year 1 (or even Foundation Year students), set something sociable e.g. where are the best student friendly offers to be found in Manchester?
|
Information Exchange |
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For Second and final year undergraduates, I ask them course related material e.g. the Ansoff-Mintzberg debate has been in strategy textbooks for years, but do modern writers have a different perspective in journals today?
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Students ask the teacher questions
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Appoint student experts on sub topics, who can be asked questions, by teacher or students
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Have individuals submit material on different sub-topics in a class research task
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Invite an expert onto the forum who can talk to students and answer questions
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Students post their visual displays for class presentations
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Students share essays on the same topic
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Students share essays on different topics
|
Knowledge Construction |
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Answer study questions: teacher comments on and grades students' responses - comments can be public, grades can be private (control this using role overrides)
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plan an essay as a group (possibly using the forum) - then each students posts their section of the essay to the forum
- Have a simulation roleplay where students act as e.g. historical figures or characters from a book - create special accounts, or just have students sign their posts as their alter egos
- Doing collaborative experiments by sharing results e.g. of field studies, allowing pooling of data from different parts of the country/world
- use forums for case study discussion
|
Development |
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Ask the students to write a reflective essay on the value of their studies to their future career plans. Good essays should go beyond ' I am doing it for a certificate'.
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Suggestions box and student feedback on the course and its delivery
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Other ideas:
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Use as a collaborative study journal, where students record their ideas and feelings about their studies
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Use forums as a class activity to supplement, or as an alternative to, class discussion
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Use forums to support students on study leave, via peer support, student support, or both
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Have a virtual lesson - a set hour in which participation in the forum discussion is compulsory
Many thanks to our contributors:
Ben Scoble
Michael Green
Paul Richardson
Megan Robertson
Julia Duggleby
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