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Facilitation
of the Assignment:
Unless students possess significant
experience in online group work, instructor facilitation[4,7] can be crucial
to the success for students who are inexperienced with group work performed
through an online medium. Facilitating small classes with relatively few
discussion boards to monitor can be time-consuming.[4] One of the challenges
of this work was to see if one person could serve as an effective facilitator
for a larger class.
With 200+ discussion boards to
monitor simultaneously, it was felt that certain concessions had to be
made about facilitation levels that one person could offer over the course
of two weeks. Additional help in maintaining order during the course of
the assignment was provided by the graduate and undergraduate teaching
assistants of the course to ensure that the main facilitator was always
informed of any problems in communication between students that could lead
to flashpoint. Their primary mission was to monitor subgroup discussions
on a daily basis and look for Netiquette violations or any other signs
of trouble in communication amongst students at either the subgroup or
group level. Facilitation of discussion was welcome, but not necessary.
Each of the two graduate teaching assistants was given four groups (56
subgroups) to monitor, while each of the four undergraduate assistants
was given two groups (28 subgroups) to monitor. While a couple of assistants
posted an occasional comment, most served as lurkers. With help in place
to minimize the chance for missing out of control situations, the facilitator
concentrated on promoting discussion amongst students.
Before the assignment began,
initial “Purpose of the Forum” messages from the facilitator
in each forum were necessary to orient the students to what each forum
was for and how it was used for the assignment. In addition, the Subgroup
forum’s “Purpose of the Forum” message contained the
question that the subgroup needed to answer, as well as links to 3 online
references on how to be successful in completing online group work.[8]
In the Orientation forum, an additional post of the facilitator’s
own “8 Nouns” offered the students an example of how it was
to be accomplished. Finally, an additional “How to Post Your Answer” post
in the Group forum detailed the exact format that each subgroup’s
final answer was to follow.
After the assignment began, the
facilitator’s role varied from reviewing and responding to students’ 8
Nouns to answering student questions about how to begin the assignment.
The most time-consuming role was helping students figure out how to post
on a WebCT discussion board. Between answering questions in the Instructor’s
Office and pointing them to the handout that
explained how to post, most students figured out how to use the boards
by the end of the first week. Students were also encouraged to contact
the facilitator by private e-mail, if there were any problems or if the
student was embarrassed in any way. It became apparent quickly that the
time to read and respond to each student’s 8 Nouns (~5 mins. each)
simply did not exist. The facilitator was reduced to checking that the
students had done the 8 Nouns correctly, injecting encouraging comments
when difficulties arose. In addition, students who asked questions in the
Instructor’s Forum about how to solve the problem were offered directions
to investigate the answer, but were not given any explicit or implicit
hints about the answer to that problem.
At the half way point into the
assignment (one week), some subgroups had made progress toward completion
of the assignment, while others had simply not started. A posting was made
to all 112 subgroups about their level of activity with one of two titles
in the subject heading: Progress or Lack of Activity. Progress was broken
into two categories with corresponding messages: a) every subgroup member
had posted their 8 Nouns activity and a timeline had been established for
completing the assignment by those members, or b) some subgroups members
had not posted their 8 Nouns but the participating members established
a timeline for completing the assignment. (Dropped students were not factored
in at this point in the assignment because it was too time consuming to
track them all.) Lack of Activity posts were given to all subgroups who
had not established a timeline for completion, regardless of 8 Nouns postings.
Roughly 10 hours of facilitator time was needed to read each subgroup’s
postings and provide the appropriate progress report message.
Subgroups that had only one person
checking in at the halfway point received significant attention from the
facilitator. This came in the form of private encouragement e-mails and
postings in the subgroup’s forum that only the students who have
participated with 72 hours to go may post on behalf of the subgroup. Those
who had not offered any substantive help by that time would be considered
delinquent and may lose points for the whole assignment. The warnings motivated
most of those who had lingered up to that point to begin. However, in two
subgroups, “subgroup leader” status was awarded to the person
or 2 persons who had participated by that deadline and were given the power
to post on behalf of the participating members of the subgroup. They proceeded
to do so accordingly, which was empowering for them despite the loss of
the online group work experience they sought.
With 48 hours remaining, the
Group forums were unlocked to allow subgroups to post their final answer.
Credit for the assignment hinged on co-authorship on the subgroup’s
final posting, which came only if substantive posts were offered before
the final posting. Therefore, a subgroup’s Orientation and Subgroup
forums were locked immediately after the final answer was posted in the
Group forum to prevent lingering students from posting answers after the
contributing members had completed discussion. At that point, the class
was reminded to complete the Post-Assignment survey after posting the final
answer. Subgroups were given an additional 24 hours beyond the full credit
deadline to post their answers; only 2 subgroups were late with their posts.
All forums were locked down after the 15th day expired.
For 14 straight days, an average
of 8 hours a day was spent monitoring, reading, and responding to students.
The hours increased around the one week mark when progress posts were made
and at the end of the assignment when forums needed to be locked down after
final subgroup answers were posted
Background
Objectives of the Work
The WebCT Assignment
Experimental Design
Facilitation of the Assignment
Grading the Assignment
Results - Student Surveys
Acknowledgements and References
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