Moving Away from Reading Reports into
Forum Posts:
Taking
advantage of forum platforms online
A common practice in many of our higher education
institutions (at least in Costa Rica) is the use of reading reports to assess
the level of student understanding of a give topic and to guarantee that
students are catching up with the course content readings. Although this type
of reports has proven good for many professors, students’ critical thinking
skills are not fully broadened and academically well-fed.
Traditional reading reports can yield a twofold effect
in courses where they are required. On the one hand, really engaged students
can come up with in-depth analysis of course topics through reaction papers and
class discussions. They may even produce excellent synopses that really reflect
their content understanding and its impact on the students’ way of processing
new information, vital for their future careers. On the other hand, traditional
reading reports can turn out to be copy/paste exercises for students who are
not motivated to analyze an article. Besides, this type of reports are merely
written for only one reader (the teacher) and the exchange of ideas with other
partners is not usually considered as a way to generate healthy discussions
about the topic.
Can the panorama described above be changed to yield “healthy
discussions” that can foster student critical thinking skills? Since May 2011 –in
my Principles of Curriculum Design course at Universidad Latina-, I have worked
with forum posts, rather than written reports, to magnify analysis and
discussion among ELT students. Let me explain a bit of my experience so far:
1. To start
with, a forum platform is required, whether that is a part of a school LMS
(Learning Management System) or a free site online. In my case, since I was
introduced to http://www.nicenet.org as
part of a course I took with the University of Oregon (Distant Education
Programs), it is the platform I get to use. (You may use any other discussion
platform available online.)
2. Depending
on the length of your course, decide how many forum discussion you want to
carry on. One forum discussion is advisable per week.
3. Link
the content of the class (reading, presentations, etc.) to the forum discussion
by providing students a clear learning outcome and guiding questions aimed at
providing some prior reflection before the actual forum interactions.
4. Monitor
the students’ forum participations by helping them expand their ideas if necessary,
by having them ponder viewpoints they haven’t considered yet, or by pointing
out important ideas they have brought into the discussion.
5. Once
the forum is over, send students an email message with a short account of the
forum highlights to encourage them to continue exchanging ideas and discussing
beyond the forum boundaries. Use it to clarify concepts that weren’t used
correctly or to strengthen up those issues that didn’t go well within the
forum.
No matter the conferencing platform you choose to host
your forum discussions, this is a great alternative to replace reading reports.
Instead of restricting your students to write a reaction paper on a course
topic whose only ready will probably be you, the teacher, have them taste a
much more cooperative learning by fostering healthy discussions that will
definitely assist students on their development of higher critical thinking
skills.
To fully
develop and comprehend this teaching issue, it’s advisable to research and
expand these areas:
1
|
Critical thinking skills for EAP
|
2
|
EAP (English for Academic Purposes)
|
3
|
Conferencing platforms online
|
4
|
Forum posts as writing exercises
|
5
|
Written discussions etiquette
|
Jonathan Acuña
ELT Instructor & Trainer based in Costa Rica
For further comments or suggestions, reach me at:
@jonacuso – Twitter
Other blogs I often write for my
students at the university are:
Post a Comment