Course Outline Assignment- Collaboration

Week's Summary

This week along with our continued work on the course outline assignment, we learned about collaboration. Collaboration is a great way to get the students involved and working together. We also learned about the importance of discussion boards. The problem with current discussion boards is that they are boring, require minimal interaction, and have timing problems. There are five steps you should follow when creating your discussion boards for the course outline assignment. Step 1 is you need to know the purpose of the discussion board you are creating. Discussion boards are made to create interaction between students. The question you have to ask yourself as the instructor is "How do you want them to interact?". There are several different types of discussion boards including: reflection, debate, and analysis. The second step is the literacy element. Meaning where are the students getting their information from to post about. This can include their textbooks, literacy sources, and non-literacy sources. All are beneficial to the students. Step 3 is the experiential element. Which involves opinionated discussions, make the discussions relevant, and they are preferred by adults. Step 4 is when the instructor determines the type of question they are asking the students to discuss. Either being reflective or one that requires more evidence. The final step 5 is when the instructor constructs the discussion question. The step should include: a purpose, question, example, instructions, and due dates. If you follow these steps when creating your discussion boards for your students they should turn out great! There are some best practices instructors should follow as well. The best practices ask these questions: "How many discussions should I have in my course?", "Should I interact inside my discussions?", and "How do I get students to take the discussion seriously?". You should ask yourself these questions when creating your discussion boards.

Item of Interest

I think discussion boards will be very beneficial in my course outline because the students can interact with each other. They can ask questions and give feedback on their progress with the guitar. As the instructor, I can read the discussions and comment on their discussions. So not only are they working with each other but also me. I plan on having them post a video of them playing their song periodically so I can hear the progress they have made, and they can get immediate feedback from me. Discussion boards will be very helpful I think.

Concern or Problem

One of my concerns with discussion boards was if the students would actually participate with them. The only way to insure they participate is to give the discussion boards some point value towards their final grade. The idea of the discussion boards was for them to help each other out, but I know students won't do anything that isn't required. I don't blame them I guess either.