Discussion
Discussion commonly takes place in larger forums, where there may be several hundred students from different parts of the country. The forum often acts as a sort of running commentary on the course. Sometimes you have a chance to put questions to an author of some of your course materials.
Discussion can help you understand the course material, perhaps at a deeper level, possibly to give you practice in academic debate, and possibly to feed into an assignment (where you might be asked to 'discuss' or 'explain' or use some ideas or concepts from the course). Participating in a discussion takes effort, there is no getting away from that, but it can also be the most rewarding type of activity in a forum.
To get a good discussion, everyone needs to construct their messages carefully and take some responsibility for the discussion.
There are two main benefits of engaging in discussion.
- By pooling everyone's expertise, insights, knowledge and sources of information you end up with a much better understanding of a subject than you possibly could alone.
- By articulating your ideas, challenging other people's views and being challenged yourself, you modify and refine your views. You can explore ideas much more thoroughly in a discussion than you can individually: you don't often spot flaws in your own arguments!
Creative conflict can be much more powerful than polite agreement. Deep learning comes out of the thrust and counter-thrust of debate, and you are likely to remember a good argument! As long as you use the Netiquette principles of checking you understand what the other person said, and criticising the idea not the person, then it's fine to disagree.
So, how does a discussion work?
- Typically you start with a discussion question or topic, posed by a tutor or perhaps by one of the group
- Generally one or more people offer their views on the question. If it stops there, that is not a discussion, just a list of opinions. Everyone needs to take responsibility for moving on
- The way to move on is to draw each other out, by asking questions like "What evidence is there that...." or "Why do you think that..... " or "What do you mean by ...."
- The next thing is to find areas of agreement or disagreement, so you'd be saying things like "I agree/disagree about ..... because......" or "But what if ....." or "On the other hand ...... because...." . Giving reasons is important - in academic discussion you generally need to back up your view using evidence, references or examples, rather than making assertions. Don't be too defensive about your opinions if people disagree - the discussion is not a competition to be the most 'right', it is a co-operative effort to improve everyone's understanding. And it's OK to change your mind once you hear other arguments!
- Aim to build on what other people have said, to separate opinion from fact and to look for areas the group has not covered. Try to look at an issue from multiple angles - you might think about 'who what why when where', or advantages and disadvantages of suggestions, or problems and barriers.
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