For my dissertation research, I studied the behaviors of users in online communities for 8 years. I conducted a series of "ethnographic" studies on communities in which people shared career advice, shared personal stories, supported each other through hard times and tried new technologies together. I found that these learning communities provided support and enrichment opportunities for the participants. While teaching online, I've realized that the discussion forums in my courses have provided my students with the same opportunities as those participants I studied all those years ago.
Designing the online discussion forums for my class and participating in them has given me a unique perspective on how my students behave in them. While the overall goal of the online discussion forum has always been to provide students with weekly activities aimed at learning the subject matter, I've found that the way students' behaved in the discussion forums affected their overall learning experience in the course. For instance, every few years I give reflection surveys in which students discuss what their expectations were for the class, whether they were met and what they gained from specific class activities such as the weekly forums. In this post, I will briefly discuss the effects of students' behaviors that I have observed online and how I think they can contribute to a student's overall learning experience in a course.
Type of online forum participants I've noticed
The first type of participant I've noticed in my discussion forums is what I'll call the leader. This is the student who always initiates discussions each week, posts early, introduces his/herself at the beginning of the class with great enthusiasm. This student knows how to incite a discussion in a constructive manner and takes my lead for getting the class talking about a topic. In my experience, these students always gain the most out of my classes. They share with me strong feelings of satisfaction with the class and the desire to incorporate what they have learned from the class into their personal and professional lives. Take a look at a typical comment from such a student. Notice how the student has a more active approach to their learning."The two most powerful learning activities that helped me the most in this course were online discussions and the portfolio. Online discussions were great for me. I really felt when collaborating with other students about a specific topic helped me gain a better understanding of the material. Getting feedback from other students from their perspective gave light to something I did not even see in the readings myself. I really enjoyed that; I feel I learn best in working with other people; to me the discussions did just that."
The second type of participant I've noticed is what I call the reactor. This student is not a strong self-starter in the discussion forums but will come in a strong second in terms of participation. This student will often reply first and on average will have more replies than posts. For instance, each week I require at least 2 posts and 2 replies. My "reactor" students will usually have the required 2 post minimum with about 5 replies on average. The only problem with this student is that their replies are not that substantial but instead are in reaction to someone else's more substantial post. I think these students are really "leaders in disguise". In other words, they WANT to be class leaders but get a bit tripped up in the logistics of participating. Perhaps, it's a time management issue or a slight self-confidence issue. In my experience, these students do well but often express to me that the class was challenging for them BUT they enjoyed it and learned from the others in the class. Here is an example of what a "reactor" comments on one of my reflection surveys. Notice how the student focuses on "learning from others".
"Although some of the assignments were a bit hard, I felt that the discussions were very beneficial to me because I was able to see different points of views from my classmates and learn more about them and their personalities. The discussions also helped me to question my own thoughts and theories and to consider ideas posed by others whether it be questions asked by the professor or things my classmates said."
The third type of participant I've found is the lurker. In online communities, lurkers are easy to track by their activity logs. I've found that my lurkers log into the system but will hang back and see what everyone else does in the discussion forums during the week. I can tell that these students have not really done any background reading on the topic and thus cannot make valuable contributions to the ongoing discussions. When they do post, it is usually a repeat of someone else's comment or a shallow "overview" of what everyone else has said. What I notice from these students is that their learning seems more peripheral in that they will not fully commit to engaging with all of the course material. They will instead grasp onto to one or two topics from the entire course. Here is an example of a "lurker" student comment from one of my surveys. Notice how the student doesn't talk specifically about learning with the other students but instead describes one thing that really "stood out" in the entire semester.
"During the semester I especially enjoyed our online discussions because it gave me the opportunity to not only get to learn new topics but to also have a discussion about information and technology. But what I will really took away with me is what I learned about privacy and security in this technological world. I will never look at a credit card or buying goods online the same way ever again. There is too much opportunity for a thief to steal my identity and information."
The fourth type of participant I've found is the slacker. This student is the one who misses the discussion forum altogether. They are worth mentioning because they are valuable members of the class, often don't do as well on other assignments and just don't take the time or have the will to interact much with others. While these are not worthy traits to have as an online student, there are definitely ways to pull the slacker out of their shell. Not surprisingly, I don't usually get surveys from this student as the surveys are not mandatory. For me, this student is the biggest challenge to reach online.
In Part 2 of this article, I talk about WHY I think my students behave the way I described above AND how this affects my job as the teacher.
Questions:
Questions:
What online behaviors have you observed from your students?
Are they different from what I've listed?
Are they different from what I've listed?
Related articles I recommend
* Creating Engaging Discussion Forums (Part 1)
* Creating Engaging Discussion Forums (Part 2)
* 8 Ways to Create Engaging Discussion Forums (Poster)
* Creating Engaging Discussion Forums (Part 1)
* Creating Engaging Discussion Forums (Part 2)
* 8 Ways to Create Engaging Discussion Forums (Poster)
