BB discussion: one group of 30 or two groups of 15?

[Katrina Gulliver]

Yes, if participation were mandatory/graded I'm sure that would make a big difference. That's not my situation (they are only graded on final exams/essays - we don't grade on participation for F2F classes, so we can't grade on it for online now).

This is bonkers. Students respond to assignments that are graded - it indicates that the instructor thinks that it is important to do this, whatever "this" is.

Don't get me started. I don't want to threadjack this, but this is the second institution I've taught where no grade is given for class participation (first place it was because it had been deemed too subjective, open to instructor prejudice. Current place they don't even enforce attendance).

[polly_mer]

Current place they don't even enforce attendance

Do they at least insist on tracking attendance at some level, even if attendance isn't part of the grade?

For online especially, there are significant financial aid ramifications for disbursing financial aid to people who aren't even going through the minimum motions to be students.

[Katrina Gulliver]

Current place they don't even enforce attendance

Do they at least insist on tracking attendance at some level, even if attendance isn't part of the grade?

yes, while we were f2f (it seems mostly to be a concern for foreign students for visa issues). But with the hasty shift to online for coronavirus, there's no way to check on anything.

[polly_mer]

Current place they don't even enforce attendance

Do they at least insist on tracking attendance at some level, even if attendance isn't part of the grade?

yes, while we were f2f (it seems mostly to be a concern for foreign students for visa issues). But with the hasty shift to online for coronavirus, there's no way to check on anything.

No way to check?

Can one not do a combination of:

* a quick run down the checklist on the people who showed up for zoom
* looking at the LMS logs to see who logged in and when
* assignments submitted count as attendance

[Katrina Gulliver]

Current place they don't even enforce attendance

Do they at least insist on tracking attendance at some level, even if attendance isn't part of the grade?

yes, while we were f2f (it seems mostly to be a concern for foreign students for visa issues). But with the hasty shift to online for coronavirus, there's no way to check on anything.

No way to check?

Can one not do a combination of:

* a quick run down the checklist on the people who showed up for zoom
* looking at the LMS logs to see who logged in and when
* assignments submitted count as attendance

"One" might be able to. The institution where I teach is not going to - and since there is no requirement for students to participate, it won't be held against them if they don't. I've looked, out of interest, at who has logged into BB. But I have neither carrot nor stick to move that number.

[dr_codex]

To the original question: I merged 3 sections of 25 into one "mega-shell" early in January, because it's easier for me to do everything once than to copy it every time. (This is in Blackboard Learn, so YMMV.)

Then we went online, and I had to set up discussion forums.

I used the "random group" function, to set up 8 groups of 9 or 10 students. My reasoning was: Discussion forums don't scale. In a group of 10, I have to read and respond to 9 people; in a group of 75, I have to do that for 74 people. As Hegemony notes, they won't, and will just jump on the first decent idea. I would probably have kept groups of 25 together, but 3 sections was too much.

The benefit was, in theory, smaller groups. The downside was considerable:
1. When I wanted to underline a point, I had to compile an omnibus message for everybody. That may be good pedagogy, but it took more work than a single "corrective comment" to steer discussions away from landmines or false trails.
2. Some groups sucked. Not only did they take a while to get going, but some never left the station. I had people petitioning for "a better group". Preach it, sister! Me, too.
3. The groups got very different things out of their conversations. That always happens with group work, but it was even more obvious in a setting in which I could not "pull them together" to share findings.
4. Cutting and pasting the information for the forums, and managing them, was a bear. For some reason, BB buries the group discussion function several layers deep, which is poor design. Too many clicks to get to the point. It is obvious that this is designed as a variant, not as a core feature.

The worst part, of course, is that asynchronous "discussion areas" -- including this one -- are a poor substitute for the give-and-take of actual discussion. They lend themselves to grandstanding, posturing, "me, too-ing", and late night rambling. (Hi pot! It's me, kettle!) My Ed Tech gained some respect from me when she admitted all of that; I wish the follow-up comment was that I had to do it...

As for the grading, I think you have to find some way to do it, or forget about decent discussions. I've taken to calling part of the grade in my small courses "Course Citizenship". Discussion is a part, as is almost anything helping somebody else.

[HigherEd7]

Here's how you make discussions that work.

Make discussion posts required and graded. I post one discussion question per unit. Then from students I require one substantial post in response (4 points), and two substantial responses to others' posts (2 points each). Substantial responses require real engagement and ideas, not just "I agree!" or "Great post!"

Check the little box that makes them "threaded" discussions, so students can reply to each other efficiently. Require that they post their first response by halfway through the unit, to keep them from all waiting till the end to start, and then having no posts to respond to. So if your unit runs Monday-Sunday, require that they post their first post by Thursday, and their two responses by Sunday.

For each unit, pose an open-ended question that allows them to integrate the material. Questions where there is a "right" and a "wrong" are not useful.  An open-ended question might be something like "Our novel is full of people who pretend to be aiming for this or that, but who actually have their own hidden agenda. Pick one character in one scene from this week's reading and theorize about what he or she actually, secretly wants. How is that revealed in their actions? Describe what you think they want and how their actions reveal this."

I have a few questions:
1. Do you require a word count for each post
2. If they have to posts two responses on Sunday will the other students have enough time to read their responses
3. What time on Thursday does the first response need to be posted by
4. Do you have them reference the textbook in their response

It looks like you are using a pretty simple rubric