Discussion activity templates

In our rush to  promote knowledge and understanding of dynamic, creative and engaging internet-based technologies within formal education, it's easy to lose sight of the importance of core text-based interaction tools like discussions or forums.  Such communication channels can be a really good way of eliciting a reflective dialogue when setup and facilitated effectively.  The key point is that the asynchronicity allows for reflection and considered articulation of your thoughts (something I've reflected on in Asynchronous = Time and space learning , The difference between asynchronous and synchronous learning activities and The learning cycle and the power of asynchronous learning activities ).  For me, the process of rearranging and retyping words in a forum post is as close to a manifestation of the learning process as you can get.  Your knowledge and understanding is being refined and crystallised based on the thoughts of other learner's. In addition, you are presenting your position and making a conscious effort to get your point across.  In addition, regular engagement in text-based learning activities have a really positive effect on developing a learner's written articulation skills.

I work in UK Higher Education where its rare for courses to make use of learning technologies not to design in some discussion based learning activities.  A common technique for those involved in helping educators design such activities is to use representations of practice.  This could include case studies, or pedagogical templates.  Quite often, learning technologies come up with their own and I am no different.  I try to use representations which have pedagogical rigour but are also easily digestable.  The level of abstraction needs to be somewhere between being too abstract for easy application and too specific to be adaptable.  Also, a consideration for easy digestion is the length of the representation.  Basically, its not good to be too long.
Below are a set of representations that can be used for any online discussion tool.  Each box represents example wording that can be adapted for use within any learning activity using this tool.  You will notice that there is lots of process support in each wording.  This covers how the learners should engage with the activity and explaining how the tutor/facilitator will engage.  Such process support is a vital part of the design of online learning activities and often overlooked.

Open publication - Free publishing - More education

Ideally I use these activity wordings as part of learning design consultation.  It helps educators new to e-learning visualise how such activities could work.  It also highlight the different types of discussion you can have.  I've grouped the wordings within a scaffolded learning process - it happens to be Salmon one but I could have used others.  The point of this is to show how discussions can be used at different stages of a scaffolded learning process.  What's interesting is that other tools like wikis are more suitable for later stages in the learning process whereas the discussion tool is a versatile and can be used within lots of different contexts. 

I hope you find these useful.

Using forums/blogs/wikis to facilitate learning: A summary

As usual for me, I'm breaking away from an existing train of thought in these posts for something different.

When you work with VLEs/LMSs you deal extensively with the text-based communication tools that exist in all systems.  The 3 biggies are the discussion/forum tool, the blog/journal tool and the wiki tool.  Explaining how each can be used to facilitate learning within learning activities is a key challenge for the Learning Technologist.  What's really important is that you articulate clearly the subtle differences between these tools and what their pedagogical affordances are. 

Here are my attempts to sum things up:

Discussion/forum tool

Use the asynchronous online discusssion tool for engaging students in a text-based dialogue:

• to facilitate a meaningful learning dialogue amongst students
• to develop students‘ written communication skills
• to allow time and space for tutors and students articulate clearly and thoughtfully when engaging in a dialogue
• to flexibly engage with students

Blog/journal tool

Use the blog/journal tool:

• to facilitate reflection amongst students
• to facilitate individual feedback from tutor to student through private journal/blog structures
• to develop students‘ written communication skills
• to allow time and space for students articulate clearly and thoughtfully when reflecting on their learning
• to flexibly engage with students

Wiki tool

Use the wiki tool for co-construct text:

• to facilitate collaboration amongst students the editing and refining of eachothers words within a group project context
• to facilitate co-operation amongst students through the allocation of tasks within a group project context
• to allow time and space for students articulate clearly and thoughtfully when writing on a particular topic

There's much more to it of course.  However, I'm trying to summarise here and give the key messages.  I welcome the views of others.

The learning cycle and the power of asynchronous learning activities

When grappling with the concept of learning I often talk about the importance of reflection.  However, another key concept is asynchronicity (I'm not entirely sure that's a word).  I've reflected on this previously within Asynchronous = Time and Space Learning.  In that post I talked about how learning is more likely to occur when given time and space.  I wanted to tease this out a bit more in relation to learning itself.


Learning is hard, really hard.  It's a skill just to recognise when it's happening and cultivate it effectively.  Often, the pain associated with it is viewed negatively.  But the pain needs to gritted out because this is an important stage of the process.  Marilyn Taylor characterised learning as a continuous process of disorientation, exploration, reorientation and equilibrium (see p53 of this).  It's a cycle and the desired state is multiple loops through the cycle.  For every stage the flexibility, time and space offered by asynchronous learning activities is preferable to a purely synchronous involvement from formal education.  Of course, for synchronous learning events you always have the time afterwards to reflect.  But if you have a formal learning experience where everything is synchronous, the asynchronous times the learner has alone are not facilitated, not supported and without structured communication or collaboration when they need it the most.  You may be thinking "so what" but this is the point of formal education - to structure, facilitate and, in some senses, manufacture the learning.  When you structure in asynchronous learning activities through the various guises of learning technology tools and carefully facilitate such activities the stages of Taylor's cycle are given the best chance of being rowed through by the learner.  It's easy for learners to capsize in the first time they encourage the disorientation stage and they'll keep doing this every time they encounter it.  Pretty soon they shy away from the mental states associated with the learning cycle.  


I think this has contributed to the a vast mass of humans who don't really know how to learn properly.  They grew up on a diet of synchronous learning and the difficult process of moving through the learning cycle wasn't supported in any way.  The tragedy is they carry it through their adult life and have trouble becoming lifelong learners thus inhibiting their potential.  I am still honing my learning skills but I keep trying and am able to support the process through various social media tool (like this one).  BTW, learning overall is great.  The "ah ha" moments are worth the pain.  It's a bit like going for a run but that metaphor can wait for another posting. 


A couple of asterisks to this post.  There is, of course, a lot of literature out there on learning theories and models.  For this post, I chose one that describe a process I recognise.  Also, the statement: "there are vast mass of humans who don't really know how to learn" is based on anecdotal evidence.  I think I have a somewhat informed decision but would welcome insights from others on this.

The difference between asynchronous and synchronous learning activities

A few points on this subject as I return from holiday.

Synchronous is what we are used to, it's what learners know and expect. For learners with a history of success in the formal education system, it works just fine. To articulate how asynchronous learning activities can work well, you need to highlight the breathing space such activities afford the learner when gathering their thoughts before they express themselves. Asynchronous is about time periods lasting days not hours.  This could be exemplified using online discussion where you are engaging with the content and other participants.  Through a dialogue, the learner's views are challenged and their own views get refined.  This is learning and learning is hard.  For me, an asynchronous context gives this process more chance of success. This is because the learner can engage in an iterative process of thinking, articulating (usually through writing text) and refining their views.  Thinking about a journal, blog type of asynchronous tool, you have more engagement with the content/own experiences than other participants.

It's important when thinking about asynchronous/synchronous learning activities to acknowledge the importance of being comfortable in the mode of learning the learner's find themselves in. Of course, I am well disposed and well used to learning asynchronous online. Many are not for various reasons. Whatever the reason, good practice involves process/navigation support where process support means how a learner should engage with the activity. You could also call this pedagogical support - how to engage pedagogically in what is usually a collaborative ethos. In a sweep of research I did earlier this year, a theme that came through strongly was the importance of learning how to learn. Online, its a misconception that the technology is the main stumbling block. This is wrong, it's the collaborative pedagogical design learners can't handle. This is because they don't know how to learn this way as they are not used to it.

Asynchronous = Time and space learning

A common topic of conversation amongst educators when discussing learning technologies is the time and space they need to find out about the various tools in the VLE and redesign their courses.  It is no secret that in my context of HE time and space is sadly lacking.  What they are saying is that they need time and space to learn.  Online, many of the standard communication/collaboration tools available to educators are best used asynchronously.  Asynchronous learning activities are time and space learning activities.  Well designed courses using such tools to scaffold students' learning through a series of activities which give them time for reflection, time for critical thinking, time for articulation and clarification.  The communication can, therefore, be more meaningful and of a better quality all round.  Within the sessions, within any synchronous learning event, the quality of any dialogue is compromised by the immediacy of the responses.  There can be little time for reflection in such an environment.  Some cope better than others with this but overall it's just not as good.  I should put potentially at the end of this of course as other factor impact on the learning.  But, in essence, the potential for critical thinking and deep learning is better within asynchronous learning activities because...

Asynchronous = time and space learning.