Online Discussion Tool

1. Creating Authentic Discussion
Environments in Online Courses
Gulinna A & Seung Gutsch
Fort Hays State University
SIDLIT 2017
August, 2017

2. Background
• Teaching Innovation and Learning Technologies(TILT)
• Over 70 online course development in 2016-2017 academic year.
• LMS: Blackboard
• Over 1/3 FHSU students are online students
• Quality Matters (QM) certified peer reviewers

3. Frequently Asked Questions
• What else do you need from me?
• Assigned readings, homework, quizzes, exams, projects, presentations
• Really? Can I have face-to-face classroom activities online?
• In-class discussions, group projects
• How do I create discussion questions?

4. Scenarios

5. “Students read end of chapter problem sets
in their textbook with me; and I demonstrate
equations and formulas to students in class
via whiteboards or Excel spreadsheets…”

6. “I play inspirational videos in class and let
students discuss over them…”

7. “I group students in my face-to-face class, and
students discuss this topic from different
perspectives…”

8. Course Design Rubrics
• Quality Assurance rubrics
• Adapted from QM rubrics
• Quality Online Learning and Teaching (QOLT) Rubrics
• Open SUNY Course Quality Review (OSCQR) Rubrics
• Student-to-student interaction
• Asynchronous communications
• Learning community

9. Course Design Frameworks
• Social presence theory (Short, Williams, and Christie, 1976)
• “ the awareness of others in an interaction combined with an appreciation of
the interpersonal aspects of that interaction”
• Community of Inquiry (CoI) (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2000)
• a model of community inquiry that constitutes three elements essential to an
educational transaction - cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching
presence
• Short, J., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The social psychology of
telecommunications. London: John Wiley & Sons.
• Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a
text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher
educationmodel. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.

10. Community of Inquiry (CoI)
• The Community of Inquiry
framework provides a
useful theoretical
perspective for creating
engaging and effective
online course
experiences.
By Matbury - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32442058

11. Community
of Inquiry
(CoI)

12. Discussion
Tools
Overview

13. Discussion Board in Blackboard

14. Bb Discussion
Board
• Part of LMS
• High in instructor
control
• Separate discussion
forums
• Customized settings

15. • Part of LMS
• High in instructor
control
• Separate discussion
forums
• Customized settings
Bb Discussion
Board Cont.

16. Bb Discussion
Board Cont.
• Closed conversations
• Limited multimedia
functions

17. Best Practices
for Bb DB
• Meaningful
conversations
• Small group
discussions
• Allow students to
subscribe

18. Best Practices
for Bb DB Cont.
• Meaningful conversations
• Small group discussions
• Allow students to
subscribe
• Show the rubric to
students
• Participate before seeing
others’ posts

19. Discussions in Piazza

20. Piazza Discussion
Board
• Integrated LTI in Learning
Management System
• Open source platform
• Moderate Instructor control

21. Piazza Discussion
Board
• Wiki style Q & A format
• Questions and posts needing
• Instructors validated answers
• Recent actions are highlighted

22. Piazza Discussion
Board
• Latex Editor
• Poll

23. Piazza Discussion
Board
Learning Analytics

24. Piazza Discussion Cons
• Manual Grading
• Single registration

25. Pedagogies of the
Platform
Emphasis on cognitive learning
process.
Allows learners to construct and
the confirm their learning
through meaningful interaction.

26. Best Practices for Piazza
• Problem solve
• Group activity
• Large class support

27. According to Carolyn Anderson from accounting department, Piazza
was worked great for her group assignments. She does feel that there is
increased the student’s engagement in the topic of the assignment.
• Piazza static shows that 252 unique contributions during a 8 week course
• Survey shows 83% of students felt positive about this tool

28. “I use the Piazza for Q&A in my computer Science
courses [CSCI 160 VA, CSCI 261 VA, CSCI 361 VA and
CSCI 369 VA]. All my online class students are very
active in Piazza.”
-Dr. Hong Biao Zeng, Professor

29. Discussion in Yellowdig

30. Discussions in Yellowdig
• LTI integration for Learning Management System
• Uses a tagging system to organize conversions.
• Facebook like interface
• Notification

31. Discussions in
Yellowdig
Game Mechanics such as a Leader
board, points and badges to enco
urage participation.

32. Discussion in
Yellowdig
• Support LaTex
• Learning Analytics
• Grading center synchronized
with LMS

33. Yellowdig
Discussion Cont.
• Experience Points (XP)
• Low in instructor control

34. Pedagogies of the
Platform
Emphasize social learning Process
achieved through streamlined
communications and rewarding
system.

35. Best Practices for
Yellowdig Discussion
• Light class conversation
• Shared projects
• Shared resources
• Class Debates
• On going semester conversation

36. I implemented Yellowdig in NURS 952. Purpose to use this tool was in a
way that allowed students to easily go to one medium and see both
posts and replies in one places a weekly basis in any places. I used both
Informal and formal discussions. Compared to discussion board I felt I
had least 25% increased on students comments.
Christine Hober. PhD from Nursing Dept.

37. One of the main sellers for me with Yellowdig is that it isn’t as
structured or concrete as discussion board is. And so I see that, like if I
don’t put such an emphasis on the points, then they are more apt to
participated in it. Where in discussion board you need to do at least
three for it to be graded. I felt that it is not necessary to give them
points through the YD. Motivation shows through featured in YD such
as leaderboard, like etc. I see twice as much activity then through
Blackboard Discussion board.
Alicia NURS Dapt. Faculty

38. I use YellowDig for discussion and shared articles. It is easier to see how
students interacting compare to blackboard discussion board.
Blackboard board take more steps to checking students post. I felt that
most of my students do their post ahead of time and do more
comments compare to blackboard discussion.
Emily MDI faculty

39. Yellowdig vs. Discussion Board.
• 8 of 10 instructors agreed that the use of the YD platform significantly
increased the quality and quantity of participation.
• Ratio of substantial to gratuitous discussion posts went from 50/50 in
db to 80/20 in Yellowdig
• “ the discussion is more dynamic and evolving “