Get Your Students Hired
I have encountered at least one student in every course who feels it is his or her responsibility to let a fellow student know how terrible their discussion post was. How would you recommend dealing with these types of students?
I really like that you take a direct and proactive approach. Setting up the rules in the beginning and applying deductions as needed are great ways to solve this problem.
Our rubric is quite useful in this way. We also require sources and attribution to validate their opinions.
I encounter this occasionally and it usually pertains to the mechanics of another student's post as opposed to the substance. In the case of the former, in the feedback for a response with this type of communication I ask the student to please avoid critiquing other students' posts and to focus on expanding the discussion by providing a different point of view, asking a question about what the student has said, etc.
Regarding critiquing the substance of a post, it depends on the nature of the critique as I always remind my students that we are all adults and that debating and discussing disagreements are perfectly valid forms of examining a topic and in fact I encourage it. If the critique is offensive I will post a response in the thread reminding all students of proper netiquette and follow up with a personal email to the offending student.
This has happened to me in a couple of courses. I sent a private email to the offending student reminding them to be respectful of others posts.
I posted the discussion etiquette in the discussion board as a reminder.
kevin,
Very ggod practice. Thank you for sharing.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
At the start of every class I tell the students that if they are having any issue with another student in their responses to privately contact me and I will handle it. This keeps the atmosphere professional.
At the start of the class, I post examples of appropriate, substantive responses for students to earn full credit for participation. This helps everyone understand that critiques of other students' posts, though encouraging, are not what I am looking for. My DB assignments should focus only on learning the material. Requiring additinoal posts to be about the topic, adding new details, making comparisons or finding examples assist in everyone learning more about the subject material.
When leaving grades and feedback, I take deductions for posts that are not substantive. It generally takes only a week or two of deductions to get everyone to post substantively to the DB.
Debra,
This is a very sound practice. Nicely done.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
Kimberly ,
Very good technique for almost all instructional settings. Thank you for sharing.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
My goal is always to provided the positive feedback of what the student did right - incorporate their errors and guide them to research sites. - ending on a positive comment and extending to the real world of business and giving them an example
I have had to privately e-mail a student about this perhaps 3 times over the course of teaching online for eight years. I do also praise appropriate constructive criticism and explain "sandwiching" comments. Very simply, saying something positive, providing constructive feedback, and then again saying something positive.
Traci,
I don't see much of this. However, I am conscientious to post my admiration for the encouraging and appropriate posts that are written. I have had to send private emails to demonstrate appropriate postings for a very few of my students.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt