Discussions

Effective discussion activities
Jo Ward, PG Diploma in Specialist Childcare Practice, Social Sciences

Background

• Programme: PG Diploma in Specialist Childcare Practice
• Module: Evidence-Informed Practice
• Cohort size: 30 students
• One day per week attendance at NTU (day release granted by employer)

Changes to practice

A single online, discussion-based activity was presented in the first week of the course - but after a full-day induction session. The theme was Critical Analysis; the format of the task was simple and clear, requiring little or no tutor moderation while in progress:

1. Read a given article or paper.
2. Critique the article and post your comments.
3. Find a relevant further resource and post a link to this.

Although the task was not assessed, its relevance to the main module assessment task was made clear, helping bolster participation.

The eLearning advantage

The cohort was quite varied in terms of professional experience, IT experience and age. Despite this, the online discussion task was a success in terms of both the quality and quantity of contributions (70+ posts). It set the scene for the remainder of the course, allowing participants to establish themselves as online learners and apply work experience to an academic exercise.

Key points for effective practice

Participants were gathered together on-campus for two days at start of course (first day induction, second day, regular teaching day). This allowed ample opportunity for students to:

• become acquainted with NOW environment
• learn about access requirements (home) and firewalls (work)
• become familiar/comfortable with online learning, and with the type of collaborative activity they will be involved in.

Comparison with earlier iterations of the same course suggests that this approach (above) forestalled a number of practical issues, as well as those to do with online participation.

The above image is a screenshot taken from the module and shows the first two discussion starter activities.