Why Might Face-to-Face Discussions Fail?

Face-to face discussions in class may fail because Students may not be prepared for assigned roles or readings Students may rely too heavily on the discussion role sheets (perhaps because they are doing what they think the teacher wants) Students may not be engaged with the discussion process Appropriate modeling of discussion skills may not have occurred The curriculum is crowded, so discussion becomes rushed and fragmented (Grisham & Wolsey, 2002)

Article main page Why might face-to-face discussions fail? What is a threaded discussion group? How is a threaded discussion group set up? A sample from a threaded discussion What if my students don’t have access to the Internet? What are some considerations for teachers? Conclusion Join and try out a threaded discussion group References

In distance education programs at the university level, threaded discussion is used extensively, along with e-mail and chat. Smith, Ferguson, and Caris (2001) evaluated the value of online and face-to-face discussion, concluding that the online forum “elicits deeper thinking on the part of the students.” Daniels (1994) suggests that young adolescent students meet in groups three times per week for face-to-face discussions; for older adolescents, he suggests face-to-face discussion initially two to three times per week and later once per week. Online threaded discussion allows the teacher and students to expand the classroom beyond the school day and beyond the school walls so that more thoughtful exchanges can take place.

I added threaded discussions to my eighth-grade students’ assignment to participate in a literature circle. I quickly discovered that I had to adjust their workload in other ways so that they weren’t overwhelmed. Accordingly, I reduced face-to-face discussions in class to once per week so that students would have time to write and discuss in online threaded discussion groups.

When I first began using threaded discussions, more than 90 percent of my students had computers at home. As intake boundaries changed and my school began to draw students from different neighborhoods, this number dropped drastically, to less than 10 percent. To provide time and access, I sent students to the library to use the computers there, allowed them to work on the computers I had in class, and encouraged them to work at home. (Read more on coping with access problems here.)

Usually, students who work on computers in class do so during a designated reading period. Students can trade their reading time for computer time, and a substantial amount of student decision making is incorporated as a result: Students must choose when and where they will read and how and when they will obtain access to the Internet, and they must think and write in ways that are beneficial to the group. There is more to investigate on this topic, but I believe that students are more willing to keep up by reading at home because they want to participate in the online discussions.