Seminar in Natural Science (online)

Class Participation and the Discussion Board

This page describes my expectations regarding class participation in BGS 391 online, answers several frequently asked questions about using the Discussion Board feature of our course site, and provides tips on time management and course organization strategies--insights I've gleaned from several semesters of online teaching.  Be sure to read this document carefully and to print out a copy for your class folder.

What does it mean to participate in an online course?

The key thing to understand about online courses, especially this one, is that they're interactive--both on-campus and online seminar students read assignments, write papers, construct arguments, do research, and come to class to engage in lively discussion.  Bb gives us the web-based tools to do just that.  Online BGS seminars are not like independent study classes, where each student works on his/her own timeline.  In this class, we have a weekly rhythm to the course, due dates for assignments, and interactivity throughout--the whole nine yards, so to speak.

Class participation includes faithful weekly online attendance, regular and meaningful contributions to the discussion board, participation in any scheduled field trips (or web-based alternatives), and submission of assignments by stated deadlines.  Everyone should read each weekly assignment completely and carefully, bring questions to the table, and be prepared to discuss the material with each other.  Attendance at all class sessions (including the field trips) is required.  If you cannot attend one of the scheduled field trips, you may complete a make-up assignment or visit the site at another time.  Important note:  you may miss one weekly online discussion forum without jeopardizing your participation credit.

Why is class participation part of my grade?

The simple answer is, because it's a crucial part of our course activities.  In fact, active student participation--especially discussion and debate--is what makes a class distinctively a seminar.  Secondly, it's one of the primary ways I have of gauging how each student engages the required reading.  Thirdly, it simply makes our investigation of science-related issues more rewarding, intellectually valid, and fun.  Most online students feel, after a course is over, that the discussion and interactivity was the heart of the learning experience; and as a teacher, I agree.

As noted on the Assignments page, I will post guidelines each week for your basic online participation (i.e., the minimum number of posts you should make to the class discussion board).  In terms of assessing your participation, I take into account several factors, including the frequency, regularity, timeliness, and (above all) quality of your contributions.  

How much time should I devote to the Bb site?  And how can I stay organized?

This can vary somewhat from student to student, depending on how much time you need to understand the material, how fast you read and type, etc.  However, a good benchmark to use is this:  consider first that BGS 391 is a six credit-hour course, which is a bit like two regular (three-hour) courses in terms of workload.  If you were taking this class on campus, you'd spend 5 hours per week just in class, and several additional hours per week reading, studying, preparing and revising assignments, doing research, etc.  

That means for an online course, you should budget approximately five hours per week just for going into our course site, reading my announcements and noting any key documents, and--most importantly--working in the Discussion Board.  That's five hours in addition to any time you spend reading, accessing outside websites, and writing your papers.

Finally, you'll need to be organized with your hard-copy notes and computer files.  A couple of tips:

• Use a 3-ring binder with 15 tabbed dividers (roughly 1 per week) to organize your syllabus, weekly notes, papers, etc.  Print out any important documents, including Mike's Notes each week, and use them to guide your studying and participation.  (I use this same system, and it's the only way I can stay organized during a busy semester.)
• Keep at least two copies of every word-processed file you create for your course assignments.  Create a special folder on your computer's hard drive for all your 391 files, and keep at least one back-up copy of all your files on a floppy disk (two floppies is even better).  Relying on a single copy is courting disaster, and I speak from experience.

How does the Discussion Board work?

The Discussion Board is a feature within our course site that enables us to read, write, and post messages to other members of the course.  In a sense, it's an ultra-organized, closed email system.  Whenever you send a new message or reply to a previous message on the Discussion Board, your message is posted in such a way that everyone else in the course can read and respond to it, if they choose.  The result is that all our discussions are archived and accessible throughout the semester.

When you click on the Discussion Board button, you will see a menu of “forums” in which you can read, write, and post messages about different topics or assignments. Clicking on any one of these highlighted forums will send you to another page where you will see all of the messages that have posted on a given topic. Each message contains a highlighted subject heading, author, and date and time sent. Clicking on a highlighted subject heading will enable you to read and, if you choose, reply to the given message.  In sum, the Discussion Board functions as a clearing house for all of our communication with one another about different topics associated with this course.

: : Additional information on discussion board terms can be found at http://faculty.roosevelt.edu/ruonline/support/Discussion_Board.pdf

How often should I login to the course and/or use the Discussion Board?

You should visit the Discussion Board each time you log in to our course, and most of your typical "five hours per week" time will be spent on the Board.  Does that mean you have to login on a certain day and/or at a certain time, or do all your 5 hours at once?  Decidedly no.  The beauty of online courses is that you can login at any time of day during the week's discussion.  Moreover, it's better if you login several times per week, rather than only once (although once is better than nothing).  

Think about it:  typically our conversations will evolve throughout each week, from Monday through the following Sunday.  If you login on multiple days instead of just one, you'll get a better sense of how the dialogue develops, you'll be more in tune with the class discussion, and you'll probably make more and better posts to the board.  If, in contrast, you regularly wait until Sunday to make all your posts, you'll always be coming in on the tail end of our conversations, and you may not get as much feedback from me or your fellow students.  Does that mean you're sunk if the only real time you can participate is on the weekends?  Decidedly not--you can still participate effectively, as many of my past online students have demonstrated.  But I nevertheless encourage you to spread out your participation, if possible.

What are the specific participation expectations for the Discussion Board?

For all the online or hybrid courses I've taught, this process of learning to use the Board is a bit like an ongoing experiment--inevitably, it takes a bit of experience for folks new to asynchronous conversation to get a "feel" for it. Your job is to participate in our dialogue in a variety of ways: by asking questions and/or making comments on assigned material, and (just as importantly) responding thoughtfully to others' remarks/questions. Remember, too, to use proper "netiquette" in all your online messages, as you would with email. 

: : See the information on Email Etiquette in the Course Documents section of our Bb site for 391.

Each of the messages I initially post to a forum constitutes a "thread"; a forum will consist of several threads of varying size and complexity, depending on the unpredictable evolution of the conversation over time. When you submit a response to a forum, you have the choice of (1) starting a new thread, or (2) replying to a pre-existing message. You'll probably do much more of the latter than the former, and that's good, because it's the replies that give the threaded discussion its organization and logical shape. Moreover, you'll quickly notice that the asynchronous nature of the discussion will allow us to track several threads at once, in contrast to a "live" discussion which forces us to stay on track with one thought at a time.

In my brief guidelines for online participation, specified in the intro to each Discussion Forum, I like to distinguish between a "post" and a "reply"--it's an admittedly artificial distinction, but a useful one nonetheless. For our purposes, a post is usually more substantial (in content) and lengthy than a reply: I'm looking for two or three decent paragraphs that demonstrate thoughtful engagement with the reading material, as opposed to a quick, superficial sentence or three. Usually I'll supply several different prompts for you to choose among in making your posts. As for replies, these are usually shorter and more off-the-cuff than posts--here you reply to another student's comment (or possibly one of my replies) somewhere along a particular thread. 

Of course, don't feel that this classification is hard and fast: you might make several shorter posts instead of two longer ones; alternatively, you might be inspired to compose a substantial reply to another student's message. Moreover, just because replies are often shorter doesn't mean they're not reflective or insightful in terms of content. Feel free to follow your instinct here. I'm confident that with enthusiastic participation, our online discussions will be healthy and provocative.

Can I go back to past forums and post messages?

Yes, to some extent.  If, for example, you didn't participate during week 7, you can go back into that forum, read the messages, and respond.  Sometimes you'll even see that I or your classmates go back into past forums and build on previous conversations, and that's one of the magical things about online discussion--it doesn't have to end abruptly, week by week.  However, you probably won't get nearly as much feedback from me if you consistently participate late in forums, nor will you get quite as much participation credit for your efforts.  That's because each week I'm focused on the new discussion forum, as well as managing the course, grading papers, etc.

What's Mike's role in the Discussion Board?

As you might expect, it's many-faceted:  I organize the discussions, ask initial questions, answer your specific questions, contribute my own thoughts about key issues (and thus try to model critical and constructive discourse about our readings), and moderate the conversation.  However, I also make an conscious effort to avoid dominating the discussion board:  I don't necessarily reply to every single message, or nor do I always "give the answer" to questions I or other pose (especially since for critical thinking-type questions, there are many possible answers).  The Board is for students as much as it's for the teacher, so my participation has important limits--especially after the class gets comfortable with the medium. 

Additional questions on the Board or on class participation in general not covered here?  Feel free to email (mbryson@roosevelt.edu) or call me (312-281-3148). 

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Last updated 02/01/08