Design and Redesign of Online Discussion: Comparison of Lessons Learned

Online discussions can benefit learners, but instructors need to design them effectively. The literature provides many guidelines for best practices and instructional design elements that contribute to successful online discussion. On the pedagogical side, these include: using questions/assignments that encourage critical thinking, providing students with grading rubrics, keeping responses strategic, and aligning the online discussion with course objectives. On the management side, best practices include clear guidelines on netiquette, timelines, structure of the discussion, student roles (e. g., moderator) and technology requirements. In 2011, an online discussion assignment was designed for a graduate course, where each student critiqued the work of two peers and then discussed the critique received from peers about his/her own work. Then the instructor conducted a student survey to assess what worked or did not work. Survey results indicated that the online discussion had positive impact on students but there was still room for improvement. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to present the process of redesign for online discussion by improving its weak design components as identified by the 2011 student survey; and, to present and compare the results of the 2012 survey from the redesigned online discussion with 2011 survey results. The redesigned online discussion is hypothesized to bring better results as measured by the same survey instrument used in the first design cycle, and that lessons learned in the redesign process can serve as a case study for teaching improvement and/or action research.