Discussion are used for instruction to externalize student thinking and provide classmates and instructors a view of students’ understanding. This is a form of assessment, but assess FOR learning, not assessment OF learning. If you are a constructivism, discussions are evidence of individual student’s connections to prior knowledge in memory. If you are social constructivism, discussion are a chance to build a social consensus of ideas that are then taken-as-shared for further learning– this is sometimes called the social construction of knowledge.

The ideal for both in-person (synchronous) and online/remote (asynchronous) class discussions is that students read and reflect on the discussion posts made by colleagues and contribute and build on those ideas in a positive way. This is civil discourse. It does NOT mean you always agree. In fact, much of scientific discourse is explicitly about testing and questions existing ideas and thoughts. But is does mean this is done in a respectful and supportive manner. If making an initial post in a new public forum, it is best to keep ideas clear and concise. If you have 2 or more thoughts, those are best done as 2 or more separate posts to make replying and building on those ideas easier.

Well… it’s been suggested that online posts can amplify things, so any criticism done in a text discussion may seem (or be taken to be) more harsh than the identical comment made in person. This may be similarly true of social networking posts and emails. It is particularly hard to be clever, witty, sarcastic, or funny, when only text is being used and no facial expressions or the body language is present to provide additional context and meaning. Emoticons help but don’t remove this effect. So when you compose your posts, and before you hit SEND, pause to consider if adding in a supportive comment to add context might help.

For the semester, your contributions to online discussion, called “Go Public” discussion in EPSY 5220, are worth 15% of your final grade. I typically read every forum discussion at least twice. Once as a participation in the discussion just as if I were talking with you as a class member and instructor. Next as an accountant/analyst to see overall who contributed the most to the discussion, along several dimensions. Here are some of the things I look for when grading:

• A typical post should provide 1 or more novel thoughts and take account of all previous posts in the forum. Duplicate/redundant ideas often indicate to me the poster did not read the prior discussion and “catch up” to where social construction of knowledge had gotten.
• I take note if the content of a post had interested me or provoked a response from me and/or others. Longer extended discussion often indicate richer, broader class learning.
• In a long discussion thread, I look for a useful summary of long thread that summarizes the discussion to that point and provide others a chance to continue from there with a shared understanding.
• I look for on-task interesting questions that take the discussion in unanticipated but productive directions. A good question can be a short but quite useful post.
• I look for wel- documented posts that are often supplemented with hyperlinks to other resources and citations to scholarly work.
• I look for on-task relevant personal examples or reflections that share rich school or broader life experiences that can enrich the discussion with real examples.
• Finally, with an eye toward the overall course objectives, I look for cross-thread connections that bring in ideas from other course Module content and prior discussion to make connections to the broader course objectives and help to reduce the impact of modules being viewed as entirely separate and unrelated content.

Scoring Process

As I indicated above, I read discussion posts at least twice.

• When reading them as an analyst/scoring rather than as a participant, I look first for a contribution from each student in the majority (but not all) module GoPublic discussions. Research shows there are several good reasons one might “lurk” and not post on a threaded discussion, including if that students already knows all the information and does not want to simply be telling everyone, or if they are a relative novice and prefer to see how the discussion is going before they do some independent work and can meaningfully contribute. This means not all students must post in all discussions every time. But if a student is posting in fewer than 75% of the discussions, they should not expect the full 15% grade for this course requirement.
• Next I look for exemplary posts, those that made me respond or induced other students to have a meaningful extended discussion. This gets that discussion initiator credit toward a full 15%. Students who don’t manage to interest or engage others in discussion should not expect the full 15% grade for this course requirement.
• Finally I look for long threads that had relevant (not “me too”) posts and represented good healthy civil discourse about important course topics. If you were not a part of 1 or more of such discussion, you should not expec