Online Moodle Forum

Managing student questions can time consuming for staff. It can also create inequalities in student information and support, and this might create anxiety for both students and staff (particularly where students introduce misinformation into informal networks where staff have no oversight). Facilitating questions to be channelled and structured through a Moodle Forum helps address these concerns. It requires 1) a quick Moodle set up, 2) reinforcement of this practice in contact time and written communications to ensure students understand the expectations and advantages of using this resource and 3) occasional staff attention to answering enquiries. All students will receive notifications about Forum posts, so they have effective and evenly distributed access to validated knowledge.

Theory

Asynchronous Forum technologies can create and reinforce communities of practice/learning, especially where individuals are at different stages of their learning journeys. Therefore, this creates the potential for student-to-student learning, as well as validated staff-to-student teaching. Some students might find online communications and discussions more accessible than face-to-face interactions, and therefore more included in an online, as opposed to physical community. However, the success of these strategies will be underpinned by the teacher’s ability to facilitate a welcoming and appropriate learning environment.

Measurable Benefits

1. The number of individual student questions that need to be answered individually can be reduced.
2. You can have confidence that all students have reasonable access to the same information about module content or assessment information etc, and this might be measurable through quantitative and qualitative module feedback surveys.
3. The use of Forums can reinforce positive contact time experience, or help compensate for negative contact time experience, by creating a wider community of learning. This might be measurable through quantitative and qualitative module feedback surveys.

How it Works

1. Set up a Forum on your module's Moodle page. You can choose a number of different types depending on your actual need (find advice here). However, a standard forum displayed in a blog-like format allows students to post and respond to each other’s questions, and all the questions are shown first, allowing students to click into each discussion to see responses. Include appropriate instructions that encourage students to use the form and support one another. E.g.
   • “Is there anything that you want to ask more about, or that you don't think you understand as well as you’d like from the learning materials? Do you have technical or academic questions about assessment? If you do, it is certain that other people are thinking the same.
   • Therefore, first scan down the threads below and see if your question has already been asked and potentially already answered. Continue current threads where appropriate, but if not start a new thread with your new question.
2. Moodle notifies all those enrolled in the module every time there is a post in a forum. However, this is likely too frequent for both staff and students, which can lead to the notifications being ignored. However, both staff and students can modify how they receive Moodle notifications. It is therefore recommended that staff follow the below process, and also make this information available to students (in a new block placed at the top of the module’s Moodle and/or as a pinned post in the Announcements block):
   • “Discussions in forums, like our [module code] Question and Answer Forum, are a great way for us to help each other learn. However, this can lead to a large volume of notifications arriving in your inbox. Therefore, I suggest that you have these sent in a 'digested' format at the end of the day, rather than every time there is a post. If you would prefer to get fewer emails from Moodle Forums, then do the following:
     1. Navigate to: http://moodle.warwick.ac.uk/user/preferences.php
     2. Select: Forum Preferences
     3. Amend the settings as required (I suggest "daily digest with subjects only", so you can quickly see if there is anything of interest).
     4. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
   • Please note, this will impact all your Moodle Forum involvement.
3. Ensure students understand the teaching and learning practices. Make it clear in Moodle messaging, and any introductory lectures or workshops, that you expect students to use the Forum for all questions in the first instance; unless there is a question they feel unable to ask there. Respond to any questions asked directly, for example in email, by asking students to post in the Forum; or in cases where this seems unreasonable, ask them to post their question in the Forum after you have answered it, and then provide a written response. Ensure all course tutors are aware of and follow these practices.
4. Assuming you have changed you Moodle settings, ensure that you regularly check questions asked and answer them. This is particularly important towards the start of the module, so that students see use of the forum is a more efficient way for them to have their questions answered.
5. Consider moderation of the Forum, in that you ask students to repost their question elsewhere, or if the question had been answered elsewhere, don’t repost this, but direct them to look themselves. This will reinforce the practice of looking before asking.
6. Remember that the best methods for facilitating sustainable learning will often involve helping students answer their own questions. It might even be useful to be explicit about this practice when answering e.g. “Great question. I’d like to help you think this through, rather than just give my opinion. Therefore, what do you think is the answer here? Once you post I can help refine to ensure you are thinking in the most useful way”.
7. Consider referring back to these discussion Forums in written feedback. This might save rewriting the same advice or explanation - and might further reinforce students’ recognition of the value in Forums, which will help subsequent module leaders using the same techniques.

Practical Example

Below is a screen shot of a Question and Answer forum for GD105. You can see there is a mixture of questions about the substantive knowledge of the module (e.g. the science of ozone depletion) and more process focused questions about scholarly practices and assessments.

Individual Perspective

Setting up the Moodle is fairly quick. The most difficult thing is breaking out of the habit of answering questions when they are asked. It can feel like you are being unhelpful by asking the students to engage in these practices. However, it is really satisfying when students start to use the forum to ask questions and this reduces time dealing with the same enquiries repeatedly. Plus, it’s reassuring to know that all students have the same information and you can refer back to these discussions in feedback comments and any informal or formal enquires about the information that was given.

Supporting Example: Dr Chloe Agg

Equal Exchange

This involves providing personal answers to questions in response to students answered posed questions. This ensures a levelling in the sharing of information, particularly pertaining to personal information i.e. hobbies and interests.

How it Works

1. Ask a student a question
2. Listen to the student’s response
3. (Provide feedback to the student’s response)
4. Provide personal response to the question originally posed

Practical Example

In Mechanical Engineering Design in the School of Engineering we ask students to complete personality profiling in order to assist them with their team working skills. Once students have submitted theirs, I share mine with them.

As I have worked in industry I am happy to share my personal experiences with the students when illustrating a point. In particular, in a lecture about quality/safety processes I talk about when things go wrong. As well as some standard case studies, I also talk about a mistake I made. My spreadsheet error nearly resulted in £1 million of corrective works. I share the story behind this, and how we fixed it, and make it clear it was my mistake. This shows the students that I’m human and that I make mistakes. It also shows how mistakes don’t need to be disasters.

Individual Perspective

"Giving students information about myself shows the students I’m human. It is a way of communicating that I’m approachable and relatable. It’s very easy to implement and has immediate results."

Supporting Video: Dr Christian Soegaard

Online Communication with Students

This video is part of a recorded interview between Dr Christian Soegaard, the pedagogy leader, and Zoe Nobileau, one of the project officers. This conversation contains the a full description of the pedagogy, it's objectives and the potential benefits.