Subject: Re: Increasing Interactions in Internet Courses
From: Dr. M. Goswamy (mygos@del3.vsnl.net.in)
Date: Mon 06 Dec 1999 - 14:47:15 MET
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 18:47:15 +0500 From: "Dr. M. Goswamy" <mygos@del3.vsnl.net.in> Subject: Re: Increasing Interactions in Internet Courses
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Re. Bill Klemm's question
>
> % Can anyone suggest some solutions, either to address the straggler issue =
And nice presentation on
> With the course Philosophy 201 (http://iq.orst.edu/iq)
> at Oregon State University, we were able to move
> class interaction up.
The practical result of the above attempt points to the fact that the clue
actually lies in the capability of the teacher to adapt the methods used in
f2f teaching for on-line programs with special care to ensure peer-to-peer
interaction
> You can use all these same tools to do the same thing
> online.
> Secondly, it misses one of the key important items
> in classes. The PEER-TO-PEER relationship.
I would like to add that in case of new groups it may sometime be more
helpful to have the peer-to-peer instruction preceded by peer-to-moderator
(teacher)-to- peer interaction (in the pattern of guided class-room group
discussion in f2f learning) and then peer-to-peer interaction taking place
with the teacher as an 'observer' (rather than a participant, which of
course is not so easy either for the teacher or the learner at the
initial stages). To carry out this process as suggested in Oregon case the
forms and the 'question' framed for the specific purpose would be an
excellent tool. One of the main evaluation criteria would be 'amount' of
contribution by the learner as well as the 'quality' of contribution.
Another additional aspect can be a session of peer-group question-answer
session when the groups can seek answers to specific questions from each
other and the teacher act as the 'moderator'. In some cases it helped us to
make it mandatory for each group to 'pose a question' (in senior groups the
question can cover even an extended issue) as we found 'framing' a
relevant and valid question often required similar (or even more) effort as
answering / discussing any specific aspect of the topic, particularly at
the end of a discussion as without sufficient involvement during the whole
session the student was at a loss to actually decide 'what to ask'. (This
also resulted in the students being more 'attentive' and 'prompt' during
on-line interaction).
Dr. M. Goswamy
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