January 26, 2005
The Problem with discussion boards
PEDABLOGUE - Cutting the Threaded Discussions
Michael describes his ongoing frustration with getting students to actively participate in using discussion boards. I think he is right when he says that the design of many boards is part of the problem. Why is it so hard for universities to design a decent UI for their CMS? Many of them seem to look like they were developed by undergraduate computer science students as a class project, rather than by thoughtful designers (with extensive user input).
The bigger issue, of course, is why students do not want to post. I think we make the mistake of thinking that we can somehow "capture" the hallway learning that goes on among students in an admittedly artificial forum. While this might seem like a great idea on the surface, in reality it is a solution in search of a problem. It is an attempt to foster a virtual "community" where a real learning community already exists.
Even in fully online courses the threads that are created by instructors for "water cooler" chat are unused or seen as a place to ask technical questions. Part of the reason for this is that most people taking online courses are adults with very busy lives who tend to be goal-driven (just let me get through the assignment). Another issue is that we (I know I do) set expectations based on what we see on very successful boards that are out on the internet. But there are two other reasons why I believe learning communities fail to develop on discussion boards.
One reason is that there is not enough time in a semester for online communities to truly develop. It takes a long time for trust to be established and people to feel comfortable with open communication. It seems like I start to get to that point right about the time the semester ends! The communities that are successful out on the internet have been around for many years and have built a following over time.
The other reason is related and it is one of scale. There are usually too few people in a class to have the critical mass necessary to achieve a learning community. In most communities, there are a huge number of lurkers who learn from a few very active people. Some lurkers never join in but some will join in when specific topics get posted. In a give class you might only have one or two active posters (and one might be the instructor) in an open forum. This does not generate enough grist for the mill in a short semester and the threads linger and die.
In the successful online communities grouped around a profession or topic, there are usually 100s or 1000s of people who post to the forum. But only a small percentage are really active over the long term. That's ok in a large group because it keeps enough fuel in the fire to keep the community viable. The lurkers then jump in (usually when they have a specific knowledge need) and know that someone will respond in a reasonable time.
I still keep an open forum in my online classes but my expectations are fairly low. Every once in awhile I am pleasantly surprised but I am just happy when the required posting forms are active!
Posted by Rovy at January 26, 2005 7:28 AM
Comments
You make some BRILLIANT observations here. Thank you for posting on this topic! I think there's nothing wrong with trying to forge a virtual community online (and you've probably heard all the "pro" arguments about how it allows shy people a voice, etc., etc.), but perhaps adding to the mix is the fact that discussion-based learning really benefits from being synchronous, rather than asynchronous. Maybe that's why it pales in comparison to the classroom where, as you put it, a real community already takes place. I also think that discussion boards require extra reading on the students' part in order to engage the process, and some of the less academically prepared don't want to (or know how to) read for intellectual inquiry. They just want to write and get the assignment over with. -- Mike Arnzen
Posted by: Mike Arnzen at January 26, 2005 9:59 AM
There are definitely a lot of changes that can be made to make the growth of community in a forum more likely - check out Joel Spolsky's article, "Building Communities with Software" -
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BuildingCommunitieswithSo.html
Posted by: Alexander McCabe at February 8, 2005 6:43 PM