Too Much Participation

I have two students in my class of 20 who probably post as many times each week as the entire class combined. I’m exaggerating a little, but they really do dominate the discussion. Their postings are substantive, and I don’t want to inhibit their learning or dampen their enthusiasm… but they drown out the rest of the class. It would be pretty odd to ask a student to post less. Any thoughts?

What to do with innapropriate postings?

What do you do when you have a person who contributes inappropriate postings to the whole group discussions? Below is an example of a post by this student. The person is often off topic in the discussions, typically sharing her challenges with the course and sometimes with broadcasting personal attacks. It really changes the tone of the discussions. Your comments are appreciated.

Student Post:
This discussion with teaming reminds me of my own experiences. I sometimes don't feel included in my team in this course. Honestly, I feel like they sometimes don't listen to what I have to say, and they gang up on me. It's like two against one.

Who would be responsible for delegating those team roles? I know that in my experiences in face to face PD no one wants to volunteer to take on the responsibility of doing anything. Most of us feel that we already have too much to do. And when someone does end up delegating those roles how to they hold those people responsible for their part? In a class setting its much easier because we get a grade, but what if it is a school system thing? How can you make it interesting and important enough for the teachers to actually do their part with substance?

-Facilitator Trying to be Tactful

5 Corner Intersection

So, I’ve been working with a colleague to improve my posts. My colleague jokingly told me that this post was a “5 corner intersection”. What do you think he meant by that?

My post:
So far you have all posted responses in the forum. Many of those have me wondering more. Participant 1 said a “”recipe for good mentoring" - A little bit of time, A heart full of caring, Two good listening ears, A handful of encouragement, An ounce of understanding, And a whole lot of patience, Mix all of the ingredients together to make a difference in a person's life.” Great recipe, including all the things a mentoring relationship needs. However, as participant 2 said, “where does knowledge/experience with the curriculum correlate with a mentoring relationship?” Participant 1 came back with the importance of how these two things correlate, which is a great display of conversations building.According to several of you, trust and good communication is key to the success or failure of the relationship. Thought, how much communication is necessary for this online relationship to work? Also, most of you are saying the mentor needs to be knowledgeable about the subject area, which is completely necessary. Another thought is, how much experience should the mentor have in order to take on this role?Many of you also indicated the success or failure of the year is based on mentor/mentee satisfaction. Thought: what do you think would make a mentor or mentee satisfied? Maybe meeting the needs you have developed for a mentoring relationship to work? Also, some of you have agreed that journal writing by students is a good means for measuring the success of a mentoring relationship. Thought – what would you ask the students to write about, which would help you decide if the mentoring is aiding in your process?

-Cross-Confused Facilitator

What Happened Here?

I had a challenging discussion last week in my online course. Here’s what happened. Let me know what you think.
Context/Initial Prompt: Please post a response to the questions below based on your readings and prior experiences:

• What needs to be in place for a mentoring relationship to work? For coaching to work?
• How will you know if your mentoring or coaching initiative is successful?

Facilitator Posting:

Class,

Great job with your responses thus far. You all have provided great insights of characteristics that will lead to a successful relationship between a mentor and a mentee. A participant in the discussion brought up a personal experience they had with an ineffective mentor, which I think is worth exploring. If your mentor was providing inadequate support, how would you handle it? Would you let anyone know? Would you confront your mentor about it? Would it be appropriate to go to your administrator or colleagues for help? What other resources are available to help you succeed as a new teacher? How important is a mentor for a new teacher and do you think that it would be possible for a beginning teacher to survive without one?

Curious Facilitator

Self-Centered Facilitator

I took some online courses to improve my own technology skills and online teaching, and had this very interesting instructor. I can’t imagine what he’s like in a face-to-face forum! For example:

Initial prompt:
Context: Please post a response to the questions below based on your readings and prior experiences:

As a facilitator, how do you demonstrate content expertise online? Why is this important?

Facilitator Posting:
Great class discussion! You’ve really hit on many elements to demonstrate content knowledge.

Kim pointed out how important it is to know the content and she couldn’t have been more right. It’s been my experience as a facilitator that if you’re not familiar with the content than the students will definitely be less open to your suggestions. It’s part of adult learning considerations that many of you mentioned; if you don’t know the material, how can they trust you to guide their learning? However, I’ve found that when working outside my area of expertise, it’s best to take the attitude of lets learn this together. Of course, it all boils down to keeping the lines of communication open like so many of you said.

It reminds me of the time when I mentored this new teacher. This person was a career changer, teaching high school English. The person was an avid American Literature Fan and challenged my suggestions for how to teach American Literature. Since I value individual perspectives, I tried to really work with the person and come to a common understanding.

By the way, if anyone is interested in setting up a mentoring program at their school or is looking for additional resources on this topic, let me know. I have a lot of material that I’ve collected and developed over the last several years that I’d be happy to share.

In all of my successful teaching experiences, I’ve walked away satisfied as has the students because we’ve both learned new things. Do you think it’s possible for an online course to be successful if the facilitator isn’t a content expert? Why?

-Anonymous Facilitator

Negative Students

I peeked into the team forums, and see some students complaining about the course. It’s not a big deal, but it kind of hurt my feelings. An example of something someone said was, “the instructor finally provided feedback on this assignment – it took forever!” The problem is that it did take me forever! When preparing feedback for the assignment, I read all of the students’ work and then created a starter response that was the same for each student. Then, I added comments particular to each student. It took so many hours, and I don’t know how to make students see that I really put a lot of time and effort into this. In a face-to-face class, I’d have a week for this. Ugh!

Frustrated Facilitator