Improving Student Engagement: Discussion Boards versus Blogs
A Discussion of “More than Words: Investigating the Format of Asynchronous Discussions as Threaded Discussions or Blogs”
I hope this does not offend any teachers — but I do not like discussion boards. And from what I have heard from my students, they do not either.
But without them, an online class is just students completing assignments by themselves, kind of like the old-fashioned correspondence class!
So while I may not like the discussion board assignment that seems to be a required part of an online class, I do feel the class needs to interact.
I prefer to base my course design on evidence as opposed to my feelings, and Clark and Kinne (2012) provide me just that.
In much more formal language, they explain why we need to replicate the class discussion experience in our online classes. (p. 4)
As teacher educators, we adhere to social learning theory, which asserts that learning is mediated within a social context. Learning is a collaborative experience that does not take place in isolation but rather through interactions.
I primarily teach face to face but have also taught online and this spring got to…
