Dr. Wende Huehn-Brown, at St. Petersburg College, provides her Guest Post today on the interesting subject of discussion boards.
With students retaining less than 20% of what we may say in a physical class, figuring out a communication system to reinforce key concepts can be vital to learning. In MyOMlab there are tools for real-time communications such as Chat and ClassLive, as well as traditional email communication tools. This guest blog will focus on how a Discussion Board may be used.
Two years ago, I read “Weblog Technology for Instruction, Learning, and Information Delivery” ( by J.P. Shim and C. Guo, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, Jan., 2009). The authors showed how discussion boards can be used in a Learning Management System (LMS). This was kind of a light bulb moment for me and led to rethinking how I create discussion boards. According to B.W. Dearstyne’s article “Blogs, The New Information Revolution?” ( Information Management Journal, 2005), boards are a “… means of collecting and organizing fresh insights and opinions … fostering knowledge and information sharing as a way of enhancing productivity”. Doing a blog outside the LMS can further enhance connectivity to other people, organizations, other classes, etc.
I originally started with further discussion of key concepts and case questions in the lesson. This often extended into service management and integrating other disciplines (such as marketing and finance) through adaptive learning concepts, and to providing further tips on completing submissions (i.e., additional tutorials, as I have quite a few students that struggle with math). There is further peer-to-peer learning that provides a perception of personalized learning and interaction with the profession. My discussion boards have evolved to include Frequently Asked Questions on assignments to help students in an open format–especially those students that seem to fear asking questions. Additionally, I share events going on; either local ones they can attend (i.e. competitions, scholarships, professional organization networking, etc.) or news stories relative to the lessons (thanks, Jay and Barry … I often use your OM blog).
Students frequently comment positively on the way discussion boards work in this class. What are your creative ways to use discussion boards?