Structuring online course conversation increases discussion content, depth, and breadth

Abstract

Online programs are being increasingly used to provide teacher PD. Effective online programs engage teachers not only in acquiring knowledge but in active participation in a community of practice. Community interactions should increase understanding of effective pedagogies and provide help in planning applications. Creating online assignments that generate substantive interactions among a large number of teachers during asynchronous online discussions (AODs) is challenging. AODs have rich content (ideas, resources, and practices), wide breadth (engaging significant numbers of participants), and substantial depth (multiple layers of “back and forth” comments). Online discussions document and quantify the content, breadth, and depth of teacher conversations. In the APS Frontiers in Physiology PD program AODs, that were part of the teacher assignments, indicated that only those teachers who were among the first to post in a discussion had substantive responses attached to their posting. In this study, discussion assignments were restructured to promote AODs on initial postings by all teachers, even those who post later in the AODs. Results from 101 teachers showed significant increases in the content, breadth, and depth of AOD showing positive impacts on the overall program goals and objectives. This suggests that online learning environments may benefit from greater structure of AODs.