10.09.05
A Strong Community
One of the questions at the Academic Panel during blogher this past summer was how to get online students more involved in the conversation.
I offered up my experiences, which really hadn’t been very pleasant. Then I was quizzed on how I thought it could be made better, what did I want in an online community. I didn’t have the answers.
In the past 3 years, the experiences have ranged from being so frustrated at the lack of willingness to even try to understand the topic to okay but unsustained conversations. Instructions from the teachers have ranged from allowing a free-for-all, no holds barred discussion on any topic to strict guidelines. No matter how hard I tried, there wasn’t any real connection to any of my classmates. These experiences just drove me deeper into my shell and kept me from making any effort beyond what was expected by the instructor.
But … this semester has been a real eye opener. It’s a very small sample of data but I think I’m beginning to see a pattern.
I am taking a “core” course (required for all history majors) and a “survey” course (an overview of a large topic of history, e.g. The Roots of Latin American History and Culture). Survey courses are usually “General Ed” requirements and therefore, attract a different audience than the core classes.
In my survey class, it’s the same old story. People who don’t bother to read the assignments asking lazy questions, non-thoughtful and lackadaisical responses to prompts about the material from the instructor. The lack of response and enthusiasm to my assigned group for our group project was so bad that I asked permission to do my own paper. Not long after receiving this permission, DrL threatened my former group by telling them they needed to pick a topic by a deadline he chose or he would tell them what their topic was. Not good.
In my core class, we are quite the enthusiastic bunch. We respond thoughtfully to the prompts, often building on each other’s thoughts and asking questions both of the instructor and each other. It’s a completely different story there, something I’ve never experienced and I love it. We are a strong community who laugh at each other’s jokes, share our experiences and offer thoughtful commentary to each other.
My limited experience makes me think the answer to this conundrum is that the community is stronger if the people in that community are enthusiastic and care about the topic.
Which, as I just written the last sentence, seems so obvious! It’s how other online communities work. It just hadn’t occured to me in the academic setting. I was probably blinded by my own enthusiasm and didn’t understand why others didn’t share that. But it’s so easy to see now.
If someone is in a class because they have to be, they aren’t going to participate as much as someone who is the class because they choose to be. This really doesn’t answer the question about how to get students motivated to participate but it is a good clue as to why some class forums work and others don’t.
Mike said,
October 9, 2005 at 9:36 pm
I went to college before online discussions, but it was the same thing in small “discussion” sections that were offered for some classes. If the classes were in the core program for a degree, then the discussion sections were much more interersting than those for general courses.
You really can’t force people to be interested in a class or topic, but I wonder if there isn’t some way to make it better for those who are interested in the subject?