Facilitation Strategies

Role of Facilitator

As the instructor, you may decide to play the role of facilitator, or assign the role to a TA, or student. It is ultimately this role that determines the success or failure of the activity. It is up to the facilitator to begin the discussion, encourage participation, jumpstart a faltering discussion, give feedback, provide support and bring the discussion to a close.

If you plan to take the role of facilitator, it is helpful to inform students of your degree of participation in the discussion. You may decide to sit back and observe the discussions, comment only occasionally, or participate fully by responding to all posts.

The initial post will also set the tone for the activity by modeling the style of posts (including the length). Humor and personal comments are allowed! Students will follow your example.

Encouraging Participation

In addition to clearly set expectations, a major factor in ensuring a successful online discussion is to foster a sense of community in the classroom. A class that is accustomed to face-2-face discussion will find it easier to make the leap online.

Social activities support a sense of community in the class. You may want to consider setting up informal discussion forums or special interest areas in which students have unstructured discussion time. Support forums may include those dealing with technical questions or assignment help.

Strategies for Focusing

In order to focus the discussion on the chosen theme rather than allow it to break off into various discussion threads, try:

• Acknowledging posts that have focused on the key issue
• Asking students to expand on their comments
• Using analogies
• Contrasting comments
• Summarizing the relevant points made

Problems and Resolutions

Too Much Participation: A popular discussion can add more than the anticipated amount of participation and reading time for both the students and instructor. If discussions repeatedly run over the time commitment you have planned, consider assigning the role of facilitation to a TA, or reducing your amount of participation.

Posting off topic: Off topic posts in the middle of a discussion can be cut from the discussion and copied to the correct thread. Alternatively, they can be copied to an email and sent to the participant with a suggestion of the correct place.

Improper posts, flames: Occasionally a discussion sparks negative comments or personal attacks, these are known as flames. Flames are clearly unacceptable, and can be dealt with by the facilitator who deletes the comment and sends an email to the author.

Netiquette

What are the guidelines for polite interaction in an online environment? How do you express emotions, or other messages often communicated by body language?

A system for online interaction and rules for Netiquette are continually being developed and shared by the users of internet communication tools- online discussion forums, chat rooms, email, listservs, MOOs and MUDs. In addition to virtual rules of etiquette, Netiquette resources define commonly used acronyms and emoticons.

Check out Rules of Netiquette